You can call it Home
by Notinmyhead
Summary: After Arizona finishes a 14 hour shift, all she wants to do is go home to her girls. However, when she walks into a homeless 15 year old Poppy Ross she's glad that she never went straight home.
1. Chapter 1

I sighed heavily as I walked away from the conversation with Dr Fraser about Cristina's progress with the conduit trial in Switzerland, looking forward to getting home to my girls. Don't get me wrong, I loved my work and I was thankful for the job that I had, but today had been a long day filled five surgeries. Three of them were quite simple, one was long and complicated and one of them was a trauma where the patient didn't survive. Eleven-year-old Emily Green had been climbing a tree when she had fallen and been impaled with a branch. We'd worked tirelessly for hours but eventually there was nothing we could do for her, and I'd had to call it.

On cold November nights like these I was extremely grateful that our apartment was right across from the hospital. I walked with my head bowed against the cold along the cold and wet pavement that lead to a corner, from which our apartment building was in clear view. I could see the light from our window was on, meaning that Callie was still up. I smiled internally at the thought of coming home to her after a long day.

As I rounded the corner, not really paying attention I walked right into someone. This certain someone was walked so fast and determinedly that she sent me stumbling back a few steps. As soon as we both regained ourselves she started apologising profusely, stuttering and stumbling over her words.

"I am _so_ sorry; I wasn't looking where I was going! Are you okay?" She ramble on and I reached out to touch her shoulder to stop her.

"Hey, it's okay. I wasn't looking either." I assured her. As she looked up at me I got a better look at her face, and what I saw shocked me. Her right eye was swollen and she had cut her bottom lip. Her eyes were red and watery and it was obvious that she had been crying. Her hair was messy and looked like it could do with washing, and her clothes were splattered with dirt. "Are _you_ okay?" I asked her concernedly.

She looked down at her feet and was quiet for a moment. "Yeah. Actually, I'm looking for the council office. Is the rehoming department in a separate building, do you know?" She asked nonchalantly, as if what she was saying wasn't a big deal. I also took in the fact that she was carrying a bag that looked heavier than her over her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around her body as she waited for an answer and it was then that I noticed that she wasn't wearing a coat. I wasn't sure what to make of this situation, but one thing was clear: this girl was homeless and hurt.

"Can I buy you a coffee? There's a sweet little café around the corner." I offered, gesturing over my shoulder in the direction of the café. She was quiet for a minute.

"No thanks." She decided. "I need to find the office." She said flatly and started to walk away. I held my arm out to stop her and she flinched. I pretended to ignore it and persisted.

"Let me buy you coffee." I insisted, turning around and starting to walk. After a few seconds I heard her start to follow me, and I mentally patted myself on the back. I was determined to help this girl. "So what's your name?" I asked as we walked side by side. I found it funny how I was only enquiring about his now, as we walked to buy coffee.

"Poppy. And you?"

"Arizona. Yup. Named after the battleship, not the state." I explained. Just then we reached the coffee shop. We went inside and sat at the nearest table. Almost instantly the person behind the counter came over to us. I ordered two vanilla lattes and two turkey sandwiches. When I said that Poppy's eyes went wide.

"You didn't have to do that." She exclaimed quietly.

"You looked hungry, and I'm petty starving too. I just worked a fourteen hour shift and I forgot to eat." I told her. "So, what has you wandering the streets after 10pm?"

"My mom and dad kicked me out. I was looking for the rehoming centre, to see what they could do." She admitted. So I was right. She then laughed incredulously as turned her head away. "You know, I was always told not to talk to strangers, and her I am telling you everything." She sighed. I pondered her words for a minute. I was consumed with protectiveness overt this girl. I saw it necessary that she was warm, healthy, and with a place to stay.

"Well, as you know, I'm Arizona Robbins. I'm 35 years old, and I live in that apartment building right across from where we met. I live there with my wife, Callie, and my daughter, Sofia. I'm a paediatric surgeon, and not to brag, but I'm ranked as one of the best in the country. I have one leg, I was in a plane crash. I'm also an army brat, and my brother Tim died when I was twenty." I summarised quickly. If I was going to get to know this girl then I could at least tell her some information about myself, to put her at ease about talking to a stranger. She looked overwhelmed and I was worried for a minute that I might have scared her. "You need a place to stay?" I prompted, and she looked at her hands, playing with her fingers as she tried to think of something to say.

"I'm Poppy Ross, I'm fifteen. I'm an only child. My parents are very conservative, so when I told them I had a girlfriend my dad," she hesitated, indicating to the bruises on her face. "He didn't take it well. They kicked me out so now I'm homeless." She copied my whole 'introducing' thing and I frowned.

I then had an idea. We had an extra bedroom, food, and a warm place. I could offer for her to stay for a while. I really liked Poppy, and she needed it. "We have an extra bedroom. We can put you up for however long you need it." I offered, not really sure how to say it. There was an awkward silence.

"Why are you being so nice?" She mumbled quietly. I could see the tears collecting in her eyes.

"Look, if I leave you, you'll either freeze or starve and I can't have that. You don't have to tell me anything, or suddenly become best friends, but at least stay with me. I can help you." I tried to convince her. She looked slightly more convinced at the idea but I could still sense underlying hesitation.

"I don't want to be a hassle to you." She admitted shyly. Just then our food arrived and she took a sandwich, taking a big bite out of it. "Sorry." She apologised after she swallowed. "I haven't eaten in a while."

"It's okay." I assured her, taking a bite from my own sandwich. "And as for being a hassle, don't ever think that." I told her and she nodded.

"Well if you're absolutely one hundred percent sure, then I guess I could use a place to stay." She agreed and I smiled.

"I'm absolutely sure."


	2. Chapter 2

Hello, earthlings!

This is my very first fic that I've posted here. I have two completed ones ready to be uploaded, and three in progress. I'm going a little crazy when it comes to which ones get updated or posted when, so just bear with me!

People. People. People. The newest Grey's trailer. Oh my god. I live in the UK and we just watched 11x18 so I can't see it for another three and a half weeks and I'm already freaking out about episode 20 and this is driving me insane and HELP.

And if you see anything, anything at all that I could improve on then please leave constructive criticism. I'm determined to make this as good as I can. And also, for the sake of this story, let's pretend that they have a spare room in their apartment. Okay? Okay.

So, I hope you enjoy it! Have a great day!

General POV

The conversation flowed easily between the two of them as they walked back to the apartment. They walked fairly quickly, as it was cold and starting to rain slightly. As they reached the apartment building Arizona noticed Poppy becoming increasingly nervous, and the nervous glances she gave to the tall building didn't go unnoticed.

"It'll be fine." Arizona assured her. "Callie is so lovely and kind, there's no way she'll have an issue with it. A lot of questions, yes, but no issues." Arizona knew that Callie would be fine with it. It was a pretty unique situation so there would be some areas of uncertainty and awkwardness, but she wholeheartedly knew it would work out.

They waited patiently for the elevator to arrive and once it did they stepped in. It was silent as they went up but it was a comfortable silence. Once the doors open they stepped out, walking down the hallway towards number 502. Once they reached it, Arizona turned to Poppy.

"As I said, we have a daughter, Sofia. She's four so she'll be in bed so we'll need to keep quiet." She informed her and Poppy nodded, gulping as Arizona pushed the door open.

As the door opened it revealed Callie standing by the kitchen sink, clearly having just finished washing the dishes. She turned round with a smile when she heard the door click closed. Her smile turned to a frown when she caught sight of Poppy standing by the door, ad she turned with a puzzled look to Arizona.

"Um, explain, please?" She told Arizona. Arizona hesitated for a second before grabbing Poppy by the wrist and dragging her to sit on the couch, and gestured of Callie to follow the suit. She did so, perching herself on the edge of the couch, not holding back in examining Poppy completely.

"Callie, Poppy. Poppy, Callie." She started off by introducing them, and they gave each other a half smile, the awkwardness still lingering in the air. "I was walking home when I walked into Poppy. She was carrying this bag that looks heavier than her and she was looking for the rehoming office. I offered to buy her coffee at the little café, and we got talking. Her mother and father kicked her out because they figured out she has a girlfriend." She summarised. "I thought she could stay with as long as she needs, because I couldn't leave her out there, Callie." She sighed. "She was going to freeze or starve and I couldn't have that." She explained. It was quiet for a few minutes as Callie thought over Arizona's words, and then she smiled and held out her hand to Poppy who shook it.

"I'm Callie. Of course you can stay here." She agreed, and Poppy smiled. Arizona sighed in relief. Even though she had been certain that it would work out she still felt relieved that it actually had.

The next hour and a half went by quickly. They all sat around the living room with a hot chocolate, courtesy of Arizona, and just talked. Poppy was pretty shy to begin with but as they got into the conversation it was easy to see that she was a chirpy, polite, and well raised girl. She was a pretty much straight-A student who just kind of kept to herself, although she had a few close friends. She admitted with a blush that about half of her bag was filled with books because she loved to read so much.

It was just reaching midnight and none of them noticed until Poppy yawned. Callie looked down at her watch and sighed when she saw the time.

"It's midnight!" She exclaimed. "We should all get to bed." She decided, standing up and lifting the cups with her, and walked over to dump them in the sink. Arizona picked up Poppy's bag for her and lead her down the hall to the guest room.

She opened the door for her and they went in. She put her bag down on the bed. "Right. You make yourself comfortable. The bathroom is right next door, and if you wake up hungry or anything there's food in the fridge. If you wake up before us feel free just to chill." She said, and Poppy nodded.

"You have a very nice home." She complimented and she nodded.

"Thanks, we really like it here." She thanked her. "You'll meet Sofia in the morning. And to warn you, she is the definition of energy. Very bubbly, very hyper." She warned and she nodded.

"I'm sure she's awesome."

"She is. Well, goodnight I guess."

"Goodnight!"

The shrill beeping of the alarm clock that they had apparently forgotten to turn off was the first noise Callie heard when she woke up the following morning. She groaned as she flipped over to turn it off, covering her eyes to block out the light that was ever so rudely shining right in her eyes. She turned round to see Arizona still fast asleep, no doubt still worn out from her shift yesterday. She smiled at her peaceful looking wife, and then decided to go and make a big breakfast for all of them.

As she reached the living room she could make out the figure of Poppy sitting on the couch reading a book, a look of deep concentration on her face. Callie smiled and continued over to the kitchen, startling Poppy when she opened the fridge door.

"Callie! I never saw you there!" She exclaimed in shock, laying her book down on her lap and smiling.

"You looked like you were enjoying that, I didn't want to interrupt." She shrugged, taking out the egg carton. "You like eggs?"

"Uh, yeah." Poppy replied, setting her book down on the table and standing up to walk over to the kitchen. "Can I give you a hand?" She offered.

Callie looked around the kitchen to see if there was anything she could do. "Do you know how to make pancakes?"

"Yeah. My mum taught me how to cook from a very young age. She owns a restaurant in town so she cooks a lot, and I was always hanging around the kitchens with her." Poppy explained, taking the bowl and the eggs from Callie and starting to get to work on making the pancakes.

"My mom taught me too. It wasn't very often. The chef we had taught me to make all kinds of things but no one could ever beat my mom's Spaghetti Bolognese."

"You had a chef?" Poppy asked in amazement.

"My dad owns a line of hotels, so money was never an object. I grew up in Miami in a house much too big for our family. There were rooms that never got visited and I'm pretty sure I never went to the entire house." Callie explained.

"Do your mom and dad live in Seattle now, or…?"

"They still live in Miami. I hear from my dad once a week and we talk for hours. I haven't heard from my mom since the day before our wedding." Poppy was about to question why, but the look on Callie's face made it clear why.

"Oh."

Just then, there was the noise of a door shutting from down the hall, followed by a set of tiny footsteps.

"Sofia." Callie whispered, nodding her head to the end of the hall, where a little figure had just appeared. She was literally a mini Callie, down to the way she stood.

"Madre!" She exclaimed, running forward and giving her a hug. Poppy's presence wasn't acknowledged until she let go of Callie and saw her standing there with a bowl full of pancake mix. "Madre, who is that?" She whispered in what she thought was a quiet voice. Callie bent down to her level.

"Sof, this is Poppy. She's gonna stay with us for a while." Callie introduced. Poppy set down the bowl and walked forward to them.

"Hey, I'm Poppy." She thought it was better to introduce herself. Sofia looked deep in thought and a little confused for a moment but she shrugged and smiled eventually.

"I'm Sofia!" I exclaimed, and then looked up at all of the stuff on the kitchen counter. "Are you guys making breakfast?" She asked curiously, standing on her toes to try and see it better.

"We are _novio." _Callie said, picking her up and sitting her down on the counter so that she could see properly.

They all heard footsteps coming from the hall and saw Arizona coming through, looking sleepy, probably woken up from the voices. The yawned as she walked into the kitchen, looking around at everything that was going on.

"Oooh, breakfast!" She smiled and they all laughed. Arizona turned to Callie to give her a good morning kiss. "Are you working today?"

"Not 'til noon." Callie answered, looking down at her watch which told her it was half past nine. "I still have two and a half hours."

"And I have the whooooole day off!" Arizona smiled, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs.

"And I'm rebuilding a guy's leg." Callie laughed. "I'm an orthopaedic surgeon." She added for Poppy's sake.

Fifteen minutes later they were all sitting round the table with breakfast in front of them, just chatting about normal things. It was strange how well Poppy blended in here, considering she'd known them all for less than 24 hours. She didn't feel awkward or anything, just herself.


	3. Chapter 3

You can call it Home

Hi guys! I know this update hasn't been as quick as the others, but the school I go to just came back from the holidays. I do a lot of stuff with music, so I've had rehearsals and concerts. Actually, I've got a big one coming up, at The Marine Hotel in North Berwick. There's been tons of practises. I actually wrote this as soon as I got in from one and was about to go to another. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter three

Monday morning came around quickly, and Poppy was dreading going back to school. Sure she would see her friends, but high school girls were downright bitchy and she had gotten sick of it the minute she'd stepped foot in the building.

"What time does your school finish?" Arizona asked in the morning at breakfast, as Poppy looked over her timetable to see what she had today.

"3:30." She replied casually.

"I should be finished work by then." Arizona said. "If not, feel free to show up at the hospital, or just do what you want."

"I'd probably go to Grace's." Poppy informed. "My girlfriend." She added when Arizona gave her a questioning look. "Her parents were okay with it, us. And I was friends with her sister, Olivia before, that's how I met her."

"Do you like school?" Sofia piped in.

Poppy looked round at her and smile. "It's great. When do you start school?"

"Not 'til next year, but Momma and Madre said that it'll come soon."

Arizona quickly explained to Poppy that she was 'Momma' and Callie was 'Madre'. Poppy smiled and looked down at the time on her phone. "I'd better get going." She sighed, picking up her bag and swinging it onto her shoulder.

"Do you need a lift or anything?" Arizona offered. "I'm just about to head into work."

Poppy shook her head. "Nah, it's okay. The school's pretty close to here anyway. I'll see you later!" She exclaimed, waving them all goodbye before opening the door and closing it behind her, making her way to school.

The first half of her day went by relatively normally, her best friend Lizzy talking her ear off the whole time. She wasn't complaining, because Lizzy actually kept up the conversation. She was shocked to hear what had happened over the course of the weekend and started asking questions immediately.

"Look, can we just act like everything's normal? I don't want to talk about my parents anymore." Poppy sighed as they sat down to lunch in the cafeteria. "And plus, I really like them." She added. Just then Grace came dancing over in her usual perky manner and planted a kiss on Poppy's cheek.

"Really like who?" She asked as she plopped herself down into the chair next to Lizzy. She took an apple off of her lunch tray and took a bite, waiting for Poppy's response.

"My mom and dad found out about us." Poppy revealed. "They kicked me out. I was looking for the council office when I walked into this woman called Arizona, and she offered to buy me coffee. We got talking, and she basically offered me a place to stay as long as I need it."

Grace looked at her for a minute before frowning and narrowing her eyes. "She just offered you? Does that not seem weird to you?"

Poppy could see clearly where this conversation was heading. "I said we got talking. She's a paediatric surgeon, and she has a wife and a kid."

It took a minute for Grace to be convinced but eventually she relaxed her face and sat back in her chair. "And you trust them?"

"I do." She assured her. "And they're really nice, too. Arizona's really perky and cheery and she never seems to be in a bad mood. Callie, her wife, is really laid back. It was obvious she was a little unsure when I first got there, but she's okay with it now. She's an orthopaedic surgeon. And Sofia, their kid, is as Arizona said 'the definition of energy'. She looks so much like Callie, but acts so much like Arizona."

They spent a good chunk of their lunch time discussing the family, and it appeared that they had passed Grace's test. By the end of lunch she was already asking when she could meet them. Grace was a complete socialite; friends with everybody, so Poppy had no doubt that she could get along with Callie and Arizona.

"Well, I could bring you over after school. Arizona said she should be home by then." She offered and Grace slung her arm around her shoulders and nodded confidently.

"Sure!" She exclaimed, just as the bell went off. She gave Poppy a quick peck on the lips before running off to her next class, which Poppy believed to be PE.

The light chatter flew effortlessly between them as they headed back to Callie and Arizona's place. Grace had tied her long red hair up into a ponytail at this point, saying that it was annoying her. They talked about all things normal; school, family, friends etc…

When they reached the apartment door there was light music coming from inside, and it was easy to recognise the lyrics of Katy Perry's 'Roar'. Poppy squeezed Grace's hand as an act of reassurance before walking into the apartment with a confident smile on her face.

As they entered Arizona's head snapped up from the counter she was currently wiping down. She smiled when she saw Poppy and put the cloth down.

"Hey Poppy!" She greeted her, skipping up to them and coming to a halt when she reached them. She smiled at Grace. "Who's this?"

Poppy smiled at Grace and held up their linked hands. "This is Grace, my girlfriend. Grace, this is Arizona!" She introduced them.

"Hi Grace!" Arizona exclaimed. "So are you guys hanging out here, or…?"

"I think we were just gonna hang here for a while and do homework and stuff. Is that okay?" She asked.

"Sure! Don't mind me, I'm just tidying up before Callie and Sof get home so Sof can make a mess again."

They actually did get quite a bit of homework done, although there was a few questions that they were unsure of. When Callie and Sofia got home introductions were repeated and everyone was happy.

Poppy couldn't help but notice how relaxed she felt here. She'd not even known this family for two whole days but they were already some of her best friends. She also knew that however it turned out, that she'd gained new friends with it.


	4. Chapter 4

You can call it Home

Chapter four- Poppy's POV

Hello. Hi. Hey. Greetings. Bonjour. Guten Tag. Hola. HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!

I want to put in a serious note about a horrible disease that affects millions, and is affecting me now.

It's called the disease of Writer's Block.

HELP.

It's slowly wearing off though, thus this chapter was written.

"And if you could turn your textbooks to page 47…" Our maths teacher, Mrs Miller, droned on to a simultaneous groan to the rest of the class. There was only one word to describe today- slow. It was the last day before the holidays and none of the teachers were letting up, each of them keeping us working until the last minute. My brain felt like it was going to explode and I needed to get out of this place.

"I'll pay you to knock me unconscious right now…" Olivia muttered next to me, flipping through the pages of the text book deliberately slowly, rolling her eyes the whole time.

"I'll pay you more." I offered. It wasn't as if it was just today that I hated this subject- maths hated me and I hated it. And the teacher. A batty old lady with a bad haircut and a bad attitude to mimic it. She always had tons of textbooks and massive loads of homework for us, and I could swear that half of my schoolbag weight was just the homework she'd ever so nicely assigned us for over the holidays. Yippee.

The minutes ticked by agonisingly slowly- it was almost as if they had fixed the clocks to trap us in here and torture us. I barely noticed what I was scribbling down as Olivia and I talked about our plans for the holidays.

"Are you still staying with Callie and Arizona?" She asked as she held her fingers in mid-air, squinting her eyes and pretending to squish the teacher's head. I entertained the thought of that actually happening in my head for a second before I remembered that she'd actually asked me a question.

"Yeah. We talked about it. I haven't heard from my mom and dad since they kicked me out, and I figured if they actually cared then I would have heard from them by now, especially with it being Christmas. I'm going out tonight to buy them presents- I want to get good ones, because they've done so much for me." I explained.

I hadn't heard one peep or seen one sight from my mom or dad since that night. Don't get me wrong, it hurt so much that it seemed that they didn't even care anymore, but it was their problem if they didn't accept me for who I was, not mine. If they wanted to talk to me, they had my number and knew my school, so they could move there asses and approach me because I sure as hell wasn't making _any_ effort to reach out to them- not after what they'd done to me.

There was a quick knock at the door and Mrs Miller crossed the room to pull the door open, revealing the principle teacher, Mr Wilson standing there wearing a serious expression. His eyes searched the classroom briefly until they looked on me. I glanced round at Olivia, wondering what on earth I could've done. It wasn't like I caused trouble- I spent lunchtime revising and hardly talked to anyone I didn't know, because I was pretty unsocial and liked to live inside a Netflix bubble.

"Can I have a word with Poppy Ross, please?" He asked, increasing my confusion further. I gave a fleeting glance to Olivia before clicking my pen off and standing up, avoiding the looks of my classmates as I crossed the room as quickly and quietly as I could. I approached him with a small smile before he led me out of the room.

"Um, sir, if you don't mind me asking, what's going on?" I questioned as we started walking in the direction of his office at the end of the corridor.

"You'll see." He said simply, picking up the pace of our walk.

Once we reached his office he pushed open the door, which allowed me to see the faces of two people who I wasn't sure if I was happy to see or not- my mom and dad. Upon seeing me my mom rushed forward to hug me tightly as I looked my dad in the eyes over her shoulder. I could tell from his expression that he was glad to see me, but he didn't look at me the same way that he used to. Like I was his little girl.

"Mom? Dad? What are you guys doing here?" I asked, probably rudely. They couldn't tell me off though; since they were the ones that kicked me out and ignored me for a month.

"Are we not allowed to see our daughter once in a blue moon?" Mom asked as if nothing had changed at all. Mr Wilson stood in the corner silently observing the situation.

"Well the last time I saw you, you both told me I wasn't the daughter you raised, so I don't know where she is, but I can go see if I can find her?" I stated sarcastically, indicating o the door. My mom looked slightly offended but my dad continued with his poker face.

"Poppy!" He barked. "Do not speak to your mother that way?"

"Oh, so she gets to be my mother, but I'm not her daughter?" I laughed incredulously. "Makes _loads_ of sense, dad."

"Did you break up with your girlfriend?" My mom asked me shortly. I rolled my eyes internally. Did they actually expect me to break up with Grace? Were they being serious right now?

"No. I love her."

"Bullshit." My dad chimed in, walking forward to wrap his arm around my mother.

"Really, dad? I know you can't accept it, but you're so narrow- minded that you can't even acknowledge the fact that we love each other?" I hissed.

"I have nothing to acknowledge. It's unnatural, so it shouldn't happen. Now, are you going to break up with your girlfriend?"

"Nope. Are you going to remember that I'm actually your daughter and get over your closed minded beliefs?"

"Nope."

"Then I guess there's nothing to discuss here." I spat, turning on my heel and heading for the door. However, he grabbed me by the shoulder to stop me and I turned round to glare at him.

"Poppy. Don't leave."

I yanked my arm from him and took a few steps back. "Mom, Dad, no. You don't care, so stop acting like you do. You beat me and kicked me out on the streets. I'm staying with lovely people who accept me for who I am and who I love more than you ever did. I love Grace. Even if we break up, which I never see happening because she is one of the greatest people I've ever met, I have never noticed guys. It's always going to be girls. And you don't care, because as you said I'm 'not the daughter you raised and loved.'

And that was it. I stormed out of the room without once looking back; doing everything I could to save the tears until I was out of eye and ear shot.

I never cried. I was normally the kind of person who kept everything inside. However, a few tears made their way down my cheeks as I leant against the wall of the corridor. I sighed as I wiped away my tears away. If that was how it was going to be, then so be it. I didn't need them. If they weren't going to accept me then that was something they could deal with.

But, no matter how many times I told myself that, it didn't stop the events of today bringing my mood down for the rest of the day. I barely paid attention to my classes, and I sat out conversations with friends. They all continuously asked me if I was okay, to which I assured them I was fine. When the final bell rung signalling the start of the holidays, I hurried my goodbyes and promises of texts and phone calls before rushing home, eager to be alone.

I tugged on the door handle when I got there and sighed when it was locked. I quickly used my fingernails to pry the spare key out of a small crack in the doorframe. I turned it in the lock and the door opened with a click. I quickly went inside and dumped my schoolbag on the couch, plopping myself down beside it.

What was I supposed to feel? I didn't know.

I sat there for a while just staring into space and letting my thoughts drift, soaking in the silence that rarely fell upon this apartment. How was I supposed to feel? Sad? I didn't. More like disappointed. I don't know if I expected it to turn out okay or not but I felt disappointed. I also felt slightly relieved- I didn't have to worry about what they thought, and I didn't have to deal with them.

It was a good forty-fifty minutes that I sat there before the sound f the door opening pulled me out of my thoughts. I turned round to see an exhausted and in pain looking Arizona setting her bag down on the table next to the door. She had worked a night shift last night and if this was her just getting in then she was bound to be absolutely exhausted. I stood up and gave her a hug to greet her.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked as we walked back over to the couch and sat down. She sighed and leaned back into the cushions.

"I lost three patients this shift, and I am fried. I've done ten surgeries, ran seven codes, and spent five hours doing paper work. Plus four traumas and two sets of crazily worried parents." She summaries her day and I could feel my eyes going wide. I let a low whistle and she nodded.

"Are you okay though? You seem to be in pain."

She sighed and rested her hand on her left leg. "You ever heard of Phantom Limb pain?"

"Oh."

"Yeah. So How was your day?"

"Well, my parents showed up." I started, which made her sit up straight. "They basically tried to force me to break up with Grace and told me that it's not possible for me to love her. Words, words, and I'm no longer the daughter the raised or loved. I'm done with them." I said simply like it was no big deal. But it was true. I didn't care anymore, and neither did they.

"Are you okay?" She asked, putting her arm around me.

"I'm done with them." I repeated. "I don't care. Can we not talk about it?"

"Okay."

We sat there for a few minutes before Arizona left to get changed, and when she returned she'd taken off her prosthetic and shoved her hair into a bun. She sat down beside me again and turned to me, looking scared of what she was about to say.

"So, um, Callie and I have been talking… We actually meant to talk to you together but we didn't know because of your parents and stuff… And you don't have to like the idea, just think about it, because we really really like you and I'm starting to see you like a daughter and so's Callie, and Sofia absolutely loves you and looks up to you…." She rambled.

"Just say it." I prompted. I had a funny feeling that I knew what she was about to say.

"Well, uh, you see, we were going to ask you about what you think of us adopting you."


	5. Chapter 5

You can call it Home

11x21- What. Is. Happening. Help. I. Can't. Handle. This.

Chapter five- Arizona's POV

The tension in the room could be cut with scissors as I waited for what seemed like hours, but was in fact only a few seconds for Poppy to reply. It was hard to tell what was going through her head but I felt a little relief when the corner of her moth lifted into a smile. She leaned forward to hug me.

"I think… I think that would be a great idea." She agreed drawing back again. "And I just want to thank you so much. You've taken me in, accepted who I am, and I already think of you all as family- and it's only been a month! I honestly don't know what I would've done if you didn't buy me that coffee. And taking me in and now adopting me like this is a big deal."

I was tearing up slightly as I took her hand. "It's been one of the best decisions I've ever made. I may have only been a month, but these things aren't things that happen over time. They're instant. And as for accepting who you are? Hello, we're married and have a kid together!"

"There're not a lot of people who accept us." She admitted. "At school. You should see the looks we get." She laughed.

"I feel ya on that one. The stares never go away. But it's not your problem." I agreed with her.

We sat there for a few minutes, just enjoying each other's company and soaking in the events of the last fifteen minutes.

"Do you think your parents will let us?" I asked, her, voicing what I'd really been worrying about. Although I had been concerned that she'd freak out at first I'd had no doubt that she would love the idea. Her parents, on the other hand, might be a different story. It's not as if it was as easy as going up to them and saying 'Hi! We're going to adopt your daughter, if you could just hand over parental rights please…'

"I bet they'll put up some sort of fight." She sighed. "I don't know why. They told me I wasn't the daughter they raised and loved unless I changed, but I can't. Even if they won they wouldn't accept me, or look at me the same way ever again. And plus, I'm sixteen in March which means legally, I can choose where I stay and who I stay with."

I nodded. "Yeah. I wish it didn't have to be so hard on you, though."

"Hey, don't worry about it. If they can't accept their daughter then that's not our problem." I could agree with that. "How did your mom and dad react when you told them?"

"I was considering not telling them. I was kinda worried out of my mind." I remembered. "If it hadn't been for my brother, Tim's reaction, then I probably would have never told anyone. When I told him, he smiled real big, and then asked if that meant I was going to marry a chick. When I said yes, he told me he was gonna dance so hard at my wedding." I was now telling her one of my best memories I had with him. He'd always been so accepting of who I was. It was crazy sometimes how much I missed him but I always knew he was watching over me, as cheesy as it sounds. "My mom and dad weren't shocked. I never dated guys, or spoke about guys. Jeez, I had a poster of Cindy Crawford on my wall and I wasn't just lookin' at her mole. My mom and dad weren't surprised when I brought someone home named Joanne." I told her honestly. She smiled and she was obviously thinking over what I just said.

"So, uh, how did your brother die?" She asked shyly. "You don't have to answer that. It's just one of those things you mentioned that I never actually knew about and I find myself wondering and… You know what? Never mind."

I laughed at her nervous babble. "It's okay. I'm an army brat. I grew up always moving from state to state, school to school, because my dad was a colonel in the United States Marine Corps. Timothy was my best friend, and normally my only one because every time we made friend we had to say goodbye, so we grew super close. Eventually, he left home to join the Marine Corps too. One day, a roadside bomb went off. Every one of them survived except Tim, because he was trapped under the cart." I was getting teary so I used the sleeve of my jumper to dry my eyes. "I was still in med school, it's crazy to think. I just got the phone call one day and…" I trailed off, deciding to leave it there before I got too emotional. Thinking of my brother brought back many memories.

"I'm so sorry." She said, hugging me again. "He sounds like he was a great guy."

"Oh, he was. There was never a dull moment when he was around, that's for sure." I laughed. I noticed the time, and seeing it was nearly five already I decided to make dinner, because I was hungry and she probably was too.

"How did you and Callie meet, then?" She asked nonchalantly, leaning against the counter. "I'm sorry, I'm just kinda firing the Spanish Inquisition at you." She laughed.

"Don't worry, you're allowed. If we're going to adopt you then it would be kinda crazy if you didn't know these things." I assured her, starting to pull pots out of the cupboard above my head. "We met around six years ago. Callie had just come to a realisation about her, uh, sexual orientation, and it had caused some trouble. Before this, her husband cheated on her so they got divorced, and he very first girlfriend walked out on her. She was left broken and near depression. One night we were at the bar just across from the hospital and she went into the bathroom, clearly upset, so I followed her in. I basically told her that once she's happy and ready to date again, that there'd be people lining up for her. She didn't believe me. She laughed at me and asked her to give her some names. Before I even knew what I was doing, I kissed her, and left. And the rest is a very, very, very long story." I summarised, laughing to myself at how long it would take to tell her all of our relationship.

"That's so cute!" She gushed. "Who ever knew that a bar bathroom could be so sentimental." She added.

"Yeah, not exactly the best location for kissing I've ever chosen." I agreed. "But it got somewhere."

"It sure did. So when did Sofia come along?"

I let out a low whistle, trying to think of how best to say this. "Little Miss Sofia Robbin Sloan Torres has a veeeeery long story. You up to hearing it? And you good for pasta, yeah?" I checked, holding up the bag of pasta before I dumped it all into the pot.

"Yes to both."

"Okay." I answered, pouring it all into the water and turning the gas on. I took a seat on the stools beside her.

"Well." I started. "It all started with me winning an award, the Carter Madison Grant. It meant I could go to Africa for three years with nearly unlimited supplies and budget. Because it was a three year long project, Callie said she would move to Africa with me. So we did all of the stuff, but the drama happened at the airport. Callie didn't want to leave, and that much was clear to anyone with eyes. So me, being the idiot I was, did something I still haven't forgiven myself for. I left her at the airport."

"My first few weeks were horrible. I'm fixing kids and it's really great because I can actually _see_ that I'm making a difference, but I was crying all of the time. I missed Callie. So I went back. I showed up at her apartment door and she slammed it in my face, which I honestly don't blame her for. A few weeks go by with me apologising every time I saw her. Eventually, she got trapped alone in a elevator with me. It was awkward, especially when she told me that she was pregnant with her best friend Mark's baby.

"Now, I never really liked Mark then. Sure, we got along well and he was a great guy, but we just never liked each other. Weeks past, as I tried to adjust to this, because everybody was expecting me to bail and run. But I swore I wouldn't, and I didn't.

"One weekend I took Callie to a B&amp;B, and on the way there we started fighting over Mark. I felt like she chose him over me all of the time. So argument, argument, and I asked her to marry me. Then the truck came out of nowhere." I paused because this memory was so hard for me to remember. I knew that if I'd just kept my eyes on the road and waited until we got there then we could have avoided it, and it was on my list of things that I would never forgive myself for. Poppy gasped and her eyes went wide.

"I nearly lost both of them. Callie was so injured, and we were all doubtful that she would make it, or even wake up if she did. Sofia Robbin Sloan was born 16 weeks early weighing just 1lb, 1 ounce. She was barely even viable and she faced so many struggles. When she was first born they couldn't find a heartbeat, but I got in there and I managed to get her heart beating. There was a massive long road of recovery, but they were both discharged twelve weeks later. Even though it wasn't in the way I imagined it, I couldn't imagine life without her."

It was quiet for a second as we both soaked in the story. It was hard to believe that Sofia had once been that 17 ounce baby, because she now loved to run around and dance and sing and her development was just the same as any other kid of her age, if not further.

"So you guys have been through a hell of a lot." Poppy stated, looking me right in the eyes.

"Not to mention the gunman and the plane crash." I joked, although it wasn't really funny.

"Oh yeah! I remember seeing the documentary about that! I knew I'd seen you before. The guy's wife died, and he came back with a gun and killed loads of people?"

"Shot 18, killed eleven." I corrected.

"Wow."

"I know. Wow."

I'm sorry that this isn't the best chapter, but I had an exam today and music performances every time I blink, and I'm going majorly crazy right now.

I just want to thank you all for the reviews and follows and favourites! Means a lot to me. And I do keep the reviews in mind when I write the chapters, and the different ideas have halped me loads with planning what I'm going to do next!

Thanks loads


	6. Chapter 6

You can Call it Home

OMG I WATCHED 11X20 GDHDJEJUE IT WAS SO SUPERLY AMAZINGLY AWESOME FHFHSGDID.

Pull it together Jenny. I mean, it was great. I could hardly handle this and now I have to watch next week's episode? And it's not even the season finale yet? HELP ME.

So anyway, I hope you all have a superly great week and I hope you enjoy this! (I'm in a reaaaaaally good mood today… And also there's a Katy Perry song playing downstairs so…)

Chapter two- Arizona's POV

The night turned into day quickly, and with it brought Sofia's insistence that because it was the holidays it was time to put up the decorations- thus, our living room and hallways looked, in Poppy's words, 'like Christmas throw up'. Decorations were scattered everywhere and the glitter was all over the place and I didn't look forward to having to clean it up. Tinsel hung from the doorframes and the actual Christmas tree was hardly visible under the sea of baubles and assorted decorations.

"I think Santa will definitely remember to stop here." Poppy commented to Sofia as they stood back to admire the tree. Poppy had definitely put on the whole Christmas act for Sofia- she'd actually helped her write a letter to Santa asking him to keep the reindeer on the roof because Sofia was scared of them coming into her room.

"You think so?"

"I sure do. How many days is it now?"

"Ten!" Sofia exclaimed, starting to jump up and down. Her excitement and hyperactivity had certainly boosted over the last few days, and it was uncommon to have her not bouncing around and singing one of the carols she'd learned at preschool. You'd think after a while that she'd eventually just run out of energy but no, she just kept jumping about like she'd just slept for hours.

"Hey Sof, why don't you get your Christmas colouring book and have some quiet time?" I suggested to her. I loved her hyper attitude, but Callie was coming in from a night shift soon and although she loved Sof, I didn't imagine that she'd exactly be up for dancing and singing. Plus, as soon as Callie got in I was headed out to work. Today I was doing a rare surgery on a seven year old named Jamie.

"So any cool stuff today?" Poppy asked me once Sofia had cheered in excitement and ran through to get the colouring book.

"A Fundoplication on a seven year old with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease." I replied casually.

"And this is the part where I pretend to know what you're even talking about?" She asked me with raised eyebrows. I laughed as I realised that she had no idea what I was talking about.

"Basically I'm going to sew the upper curve of his stomach to his oesophagus to help his acid reflux." I simplified.

"That's so cool!"

"It is, isn't it?"

While we were waiting for Sof to come back I'd started reorganising all of the photos on the mantelpiece because they were all hidden under the decorations, and Poppy joined me.

"Who's this?" She asked as she held up one that showed Mark and Callie looking over baby Sofia's incubator in the NICU. I smiled as I remembered that being taken- I was the one behind the camera. We'd just been told that she could be discharged and I hadn't been able to resist taking the picture.

"That's Mark Sloan. Remember, Sof's dad?"

"Yeah. Where is he now?"

How do I tell her this one without getting into all the details? There was no way.

"So I had my leg amputated. In a plane crash, remember?" I asked her to see if she remembered me telling her.

"Yeah."

"Well, it's story time again." I laughed. "You're definitely getting a rundown of the family history as of lately. So basically Mark and I, along with four other doctors were all flying to Boise to help with a conjoined twins surgery, and about halfway there the back of the plane flew off, and we were out in the woods for four days straight. I had an open femur fracture which caused the amputation. Mark had heart problems and they had to do a procedure in the field. We got back and about two months later he died when we pulled the plug. The love of his life, although he didn't know it until it happened, also died out there."

I always hated repeating this story. During the first year after the crash and I had some PTSD Callie had forced me to go see someone, and having to go over and over it had been the hardest thing about it, aside from the leg. It had honestly seemed like it had made everything worse for so long but gradually I could see it helping. But I still hated talking about it.

"Oh my God…" She trailed off, looking down at the picture.

"But, let's not talk about it. We're being happy today!" I encouraged as Sof came running through with multiple colouring books and a bag of crayons.

"Poppy, will you pleeeeeaseeeee colour with me?" She asked sweetly, using the puppy eyes that I'd taught her to use on Callie.

"Sure I will!"

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"Heeeeeeellooooooo!" I sang as I approached Teddy in the cafeteria, where she was reading through some charts while she picked at a very dull and leafy looking salad.

"Well someone's overly cheery today." She remarked as she flipped the chart shut and sat up straighter.

"It's Christmas! You should be excited." I exclaimed.

"I am. Just today has been so long and I've barely had a chance to think. Apparently today is 'let's have serious problems with our hearts!' day." She explained sarcastically and I had to laugh that.

"Why don't you come over tonight, have some wine or something?" I suggested. "Nothing much, because Sof will be there, but she loves you. And you can meet Poppy too!"

She smiled gratefully. "That sounds great. I can't promise a time, but I should say around seven thirty." She told me. "How's it going with Poppy, anyway?"

"I think we're going to adopt her." I revealed and she gasped. "I was really worried in case she wanted to go back to her parents, but they basically showed up at her school, gave her an ultimatum and told her that she wasn't their daughter."

"I think you're making a good decision." She agreed, taking a sip of her water. "It's really weird, but it's great."

"I know. Like, we only met her a month ago and now we're going to adopt her. It's crazy." I sighed.

"And Sofia likes her?"

"Loves her." I corrected. "She hangs on to her every word, and follows her everywhere."

Just then Teddy's pager started going off and she made the fact that she wasn't happy with this clear as she groaned loudly. She stood up, picking up her chart and binning her food. "I'll see you later." She grumbled before stalking off. I waited until she was out of earshot before I laughed to myself. Teddy never failed to make me laugh.

Half an hour later found me in my office making my way slowly through charts and scans, and I was glad to look over ten year old Emery's ones and see that she could be discharged if her stats remained like this. It was hard to do this job sometimes because of the sick children, and the bad outcomes always hit me hard, but the feeling that you get when you can make them smile and discharge them was the best. It made it worth it.

At some point my thoughts had drifted off, and I found myself thinking about things like if penguins have knees or not. My daydreams were cut off, however, by a knock on the door, followed by it opening to reveal three of my favourite people in the world.

"Hey guys!" I exclaimed, standing up from my desk and hugging them all. I picked Sofia up an perched her on my waist and gave Callie a peck on the lips, then wrapped my other arm around Poppy. "What are you all doing here?"

"We just thought we'd visit you." Callie said.

"Well I'm glad." I smiled. "It's been pretty slow around here. Mostly ER stuff, since kids love to play out in the snow, and the ever so lovely and slippery ice that causes many an injury. I was just doing charting." I informed her, gesturing to the piles of paperwork scattered all over my desk. My office was a typical peds surgeon office- painted in a pale sunshine yellow with different murals painted on, along with cards that patients and parents have given me over the years. I also had a photo of Callie and I on our wedding day, and one of Callie and Sofia on the swings at the playground.

I indicated for them to sit on the couch in the corner and we did so, leaning back into the cushions. "Teddy's going to over at around 7:30 tonight." I told Callie. "She's having a super stressful day so I thought she could do with a glass of wine."

She nodded. "That's great, I've not seen her in a while."

"Teddy?" Poppy asked.

"My best friend, she works here. She's head of Cardio."

"Right."

"You'll like her." I assured. "She's quite excited to meet you."

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As excited as Teddy was to meet Poppy, nine o'clock that night rolled around and Teddy had fallen asleep on the couch. The position she was lying in didn't look particularly comfortable, and the couch wasn't the best place to sleep, but she had been so tired so I didn't want to wake her. Poppy, Callie and I just sat on the couch having light conversations, and it was decided that Grace and Olivia were going to come round for a while tomorrow.

"Are you sure it's okay?" She asked again as we stood up to go to bed.

"Relax." I laughed. "You live here, remember? And if we're adopting you then we'll be seeing a lot more of them around, I'm guessing."

"Good point." She realised. "Okay, I'll see you guys in the morning!"

"Remember to be quiet just in case Teddy's still sleeping when you get up." Callie reminded her as we hugged her goodnight.

"I will, have a good sleep!" She said before closing the door to her room.

"This past month has been so crazy." I said to Callie as we climbed into bed. I faced my back to her and she wrapped her arms around me and held me close. I held her hands in mine and took in her warm smell of coconut, thanks to the shampoo she used.

"When have our lives ever been not crazy?" She replied.

"Good point." I laughed. "Just sometimes it seems to catch up with me."

"I know what you mean."

I turned round to look at her, taking in her stunning Latina features that never failed to blow me away. I found myself having a mushy moment inside as I thought about how much I loved her.

"I love you." I said simply, kissing her softly.

"So sickeningly sweet." She commented. "I love you too."

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Okay, so I know the end scene was incredibly cheesy, and that this chapter wasn't really eventful, but I prooooomiiiiiiiseeeee that I have stuff planned.

An also, when was the moment that Calzona became your OTP? For me, it was when Callie was crying in after arguing with her dad and Arizona find her and comforts her. So freaking cute.


	7. Chapter 7

You can call it Home

Chapter seven- Poppy's POV

Christmas flew by quickly, and the New Year came quickly. They say a new year was for new starts and resolutions, so I was going to try. The papers had been sent to my parents so that I could get past everything that happened. The end of last year hadn't gone well for me, apart from meeting these guys, and I wanted to forget it. I wanted to forget my mom and dad, and all of the nights I'd cried myself to sleep because I _knew_ they wouldn't take it well. I was determined to let everything go and start over.

But it wasn't that easy.

On Tuesday morning I stirred awake, squinting to focus my eyesight and stretching out my arms, groaning when I noticed that they were sore from the awkward way I'd slept. I had picked up my pillow and intended to shove it over my face to block out any light and fall back asleep when I heard voices coming from the kitchen, and it sounded like it was quite a heated discussion. I tilted my head to the side as I listened in. Because my brain was still all foggy from my sleep it took me a while to tune in to what they were saying, but when I finally heard my eyes snapped open and I sat up pin straight as I heard a set of familiar voices. Voices that I had planned to stay away from.

"What are you doing here?" I asked them as I marched out of my room, heading straight to where they were standing by the door. They backed up a little as I stood closer to them, looking my 'father' straight in the eye.

"We woke up this morning to find adoption consent forms on our doorstep. Why do you _think_ we're here?" He spat at me. I rolled my eyes at the fact that they'd even showed up here, let alone thought that I'd change my mind about this.

"And you're here why…?" I asked lazily, leaning against the wooden doorframe and pretending to examine my nails. You would have thought that I would have flipped out or something, but I was honestly so tired of this and I couldn't figure out why they kept trying. I'd made it clear that this is where I wanted to stay, and that these were the people I'd chosen to be my new family, and yet they were relentless in their attempts to get me to go back.

"We have no interest in letting these… _women_" He gave a side glance to Callie and Arizona, and I could tell the judgemental thoughts that were running though his head "adopt you."

"And why's that?" I enquired.

"Well, for one, it's two women married! Unnatural!" He started and I looked over to Callie and Arizona with an apologetic look for his words. "And they're raising a child to believe that it's completely normal, and I will not let them convince you too! Not by a long shot!" He raised his voice. The people next door to us would probably be wondering what the hell was going on by now, and I was planning on keeping this quiet.

I stood there in complete and utter disbelief. He could insult me, but I would not let him judge and insult the people that I had grown to love. "What?_ What?_ You think that _they're_ the reason I believe it's okay? Really? Because as I recall, I met them after _you_ beat me and kicked me out because I had a girlfriend. I'm pretty sure I believed it was okay before then, David." I recited incredulously. I addressed him by his first name because I was done with this whole 'mother' and 'father' thing. If they couldn't even love her child despite their beliefs hen they didn't deserve to be my parents.

"I am your father and you will address me so!" He commanded. I took a step back because I couldn't stand to be near him. Callie and Arizona had stayed quiet for the whole time and I was worried about what they must be thinking.

"And why should I do that? If I'm not the daughter you raised, then I guess you're not the parents that raised me." My voice shook as I said the next part.

It all happened so quickly. As soon as the words left my mouth he took no time to hesitate in swinging his arms back, bringing it forward to collide with my left eye. My hands immediately lifted up to my face as I stumbled back a few steps from the impact, and the stinging pain above my eyebrow told me that one of his dodgy rings he wore had cut into my skin. My vison had gone partially blurry but it was clear to see Callie stepping in front of me to face my dad, while Arizona rushed forward to comfort me. It hurt like hell, but the rage I felt inside numbed it a little.

"Back off." Callie snapped, holding out her arm to stop them from coming any closer. Sarah was pulling at David's arm to stop him going any closer. She was the one who always stood in silence at the back while David did the talking, and was normally the one to calm him down.

"David… Please… We're not going to get her back like this…" She pleaded with him. However I walked forward again beside Arizona's protests and faced them, a look of hatred on my face.

"No, Sarah. You're not going to get me back like this. Not when you're judgemental, unaccepting, unable to love your daughter. No way. And I'll have you know" I said, holding my arm out to indicate to the two women standing behind me "that these people are better parents than you ever were. All you cared about were my grades and my health. If I came home from school crying, you'd tell me to suck it up. If I got even _one_ question wrong on a test, you would get mad at me and force an extra hour of revision, pretty much cutting off my social life." I hissed at them. I could feel something running down the side of my face and I knew it was blood, but I ignored it and went on. "I don't know what you think is going to happen. You gave me an ultimatum, and I chose to be who I was.

"I'm not going to change. It's not a choice, an option. You said I wasn't the daughter you loved, so I don't understand how that's going to change if I come back to you. So why do you even try? Because I love these people. I've known them all of two months and they've treated me better than you ever did. This is my family now. This is where I live. Grace is who I love. Fight it, take us to court, but you'll lose. I can promise you that right now. So, as far as I know they didn't invite you in, so this is trespassing. Get out." I barely whispered. All of my strength right now was going into not crying. My voice and hands were shaking and my voice broke. I had spent the last two months convincing myself that I wouldn't get upset by them, but there I was.

"But, Poppy-"Sarah tried to say but Arizona cut her off.

"She said, get out. Before we call the cops." She hissed in a deadly tone. She pretty much shoved them out of the door before slamming it in their faces, making the walls of the place shake with the force of it. They both quickly hurried to hug me tightly as I stood there in shock. After a few seconds I relaxed and melted into their hugs, the tears I'd been trying to hold back finally spilling over. I hated that I was crying over them. I wasn't even sad, because the fact that they didn't think of me as their daughter wasn't news to me. I think I was just overwhelmed/relieved/disappointed, as I said before. I hadn't exactly expected this to happen, let alone to end up with David having punched me.

"I'm sorry…" I trailed off as we moved over to the couch, as standing and hugging was quite awkward with three people.

"What on earth are you sorry for?" Arizona asked incredulously, pulling my hair back from over my eyes to examine my injury. "Can you get the first aid kit?" She asked Callie who nodded and got up, heading over to the kitchen cabinet.

"You probably just wanted it to be easy, and now all of this has happened and he insulted you and…" I told her quietly and she pulled me in again for another hug.

"You silly girl, we didn't expect it to go easily. You warned us. And as for the insults? We're used to them. Every day, from random people who think they have the right to judge us. It's easy to brush off by now." She assured me, kissing my forehead. I closed my eyes and leaned back into the couch, relaxing after everything that had happened.

"Where's Sof?" I asked, looking around to see if there was any sign of my favourite hyper four year old.

"Our friend Meredith who works at the hospital too has two kids. Her daughter, Zola and Sofia get on really well so they called this morning to see if Sof would be interested in going swimming today. Of course she agreed."

"I'm glad." I sighed. "I don't know what I would have done if she'd seen and heard all of that."

"We would have handled it." Callie told me, as she returned with the first aid kit. She set to work on my face, cleaning the cut, which stung a little. "There are a lot of things we've had to explain to Sof, and she handled them all quite well. She's quite mature for her age."

"I noticed." I agreed. "She just seems to understand things more than you'd expect her."

"So, we're both off today. Anything particular you'd like to do?" Arizona asked as Callie finished up, packing everything away.

"Not really. Can we just stay in, maybe watch a movie?"

"Sure."

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That night once Sofia returned home from her day out it was easy to forget what had happened today. She had initially had a lot of questions about how I hurt myself, but we brushed it off by saying I'd just fallen. She shook it off quickly and continued playing with her Play-dough at the kitchen counter, making what she said was an Olaf.

"So, we were thinking about getting a house." Callie revealed as we sat around the counter after Sof had gone to bed.

"Oh my God, really?" I asked in surprise.

"Yeah." Arizona replied. "We love this place, but it's getting kind of small and plus, I'm sure Sof would love to have a back yard, with a swing set and everything."

"I think it's a great idea! Sof would definitely love a swing set, I reckon she'd never be off of it." I agreed, thinking about how hard it would be to convince her to come inside after a day of playing outside.

"I'm happy you think so, because we're going house hunting on Saturday." Callie laughed and I joined in with her.

"Well, it's half ten so I'm certainly tired." Arizona sighed, standing up from where she sat. "I'll see you both tomorrow!" She exclaimed, kissing Callie and hugging me.

"I'm gonna hit the sack too." I decided, following her through. "And guys?" I said to get both their attention.

"I did mean what I said today. You know, to them. I do love you guys, and you're better parents than they ever were." I revealed, cringing internally at how mushy I sounded.

"We love you too." Callie said, walking over to hug me, Arizona joining her.

"Night guys. I'll see you ibn the morning." I yawned after they drew back.

"See you tomorrow! Love you!"

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Yay for two updates in two days!

So last night I did that concert, and it was so much fun. Apart from the bit when I was getting off of the minibus and tripped over someone's trombone case, because it was dark and I couldn't see. I also had Irn Bru (a drink we drink here) and I got super hyper, but the whole performance bit went well.

cmoney13, I've looked through everybody's (I'm not a stalker, promise) and I love your fics!

AZsgirl, after this, maybe it will… Maybe it won't…

Guest, thanks so much! And that scene is so cute! I just remember smiling like an idiot the whole time…

Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

You can call it Home

I JUST WATCHED 11X21. Heeeeelllllllllppppppppppppp. And neither Callie nor Arizona was in it so that doesn't help. And Chasing Cars. And Sleeping at Last. I am not emotionally stable enough for this.

Chapter eight- Callie's POV

"Momma, I wanna go home!" Sofia whined as she tugged at the hem of Arizona's jeans. I couldn't really blame her, as we had been out and about all day.

"Soon, baby, I promise. We're just gonna look in this one and then we can go." Arizona promised as we followed our real estate agent into the garden of the next house. From what I could see, the garden kind of wrapped around the house which was pretty awesome.

I helped Sofia pull the little blue plastic things over her shoes once we entered. There were hallways going left, right and straight on. The hallway we were in was straight on and pretty long. From here I could see the start of the kitchen through an archway, which looked quite open and light. Doors on both walls lead to rooms, most likely the living room and such.

"But this is booooooring!" She huffed in a very teenager-like attitude, crossing her arms and looking around.

"Why don't we go and explore then?" Poppy suggested, holding out her hand. "Because if we like this one, it could be our home forever."

"Okay!" She agreed, her facial expression quickly changing from huffy to intrigued. She took Poppy's hand and followed her, both of them disappearing around the corner.

"So what are we thinking so far?" I asked Arizona as I caught up with them. We were currently standing in a very spacious living room, which had pretty big windows which let in a lot of light, automatically giving the place a friendlier look. There was another door in the very corner across from the door which as far as I could see was an office of sorts.

"I really like it! It's very light and quite open, like we were thinking." Arizona exclaimed. "And there's no stairs! I can use stairs but it's a lot harder so I would rather there wasn't." She added when I frowned, because she had told me she was okay with stairs.

"That's great then!" I agreed, walking over beside her. "I really like it so far too."

"Momma! Madre! Come check out the kitchen!" I heard a certain four year old's voice ring through the house, undoubtedly from the kitchen.

About forty five minutes later, we had toured the whole house and we pretty much decided that this was definitely our home. It was everything we had ever dreamed of. Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big back yard which had a treehouse in it, two office rooms and a big living room. It was quite a decent sized house and it was absolutely perfect for us. To be honest I could see everything here.

"It's a really great house!" Poppy exclaimed. We were all in happy moods having found this house, and Poppy was practically jumping with excitement.

"I think this is the house!" Arizona announced happily smiling at the realtor. "When can we sign papers?"

"Jeez, Zona, calm down." I laughed at her eagerness.

"No, no it's fine." The realtor laughed. "If you come back next week then we can have the papers signed next week, and the keys two weeks after that." He informed us.

"That's great!"

"Yay!" Sofia sung as we rode back home in the car, apparently via the Chinese Take Away according to Arizona. Sofia had turned off her bad mood for sure when I'd promised her she could have the room next to ours.

"Yay!" We all chorused after her. Arizona was practically bouncing in her seat, and I could tell she had been so excited for this. Sure our apartment was great and it had a lot of good memories, but with the good came the bad, and I too was glad to get away from those.

"It's going to be weird not living right across from the hospital." I admitted. "We've always been able to get there really fast in emergencies, and rushing over here on a break was never out of the question."

"It will be." Arizona agreed, placing her hand over mine on the steering wheel. "But it's worth it."

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Three weeks later, and we were official owners of this amazing house. The three weeks had been full of excitement and counting down the days until we could start moving our stuff in, but it was all worth it.

"Well, you guys definitely got a good place." Shepherd complimented as he walked up to us in the kitchen, holding a box. We'd asked all of the guys to help us move all the big stuff, like the couch, the TV, the beds and stuff in, to make sure we had everything done as soon as possible. Most of them stayed and helped with the other boxes though. "Where do you want this?"

I quickly peered into the box to see a stack of books, not belonging to me or Arizona, so I was going to assume they were Poppy's. "It is a really great place, it's perfect for us." I agreed, looking around the room. Boxes littered the floor and cans of Coke and empty plates from lunch were scattered around the island. It was a mess, but we that once we got everything unpacked and put away that it would look like a home. "Those are Poppy's. Her room is in the hall to the right of the front door, second door on the left." I told him and he nodded, heading off in that direction. "They're life savers. All of them. This would have taken ages without their help." I said to Arizona.

"So true." She nodded. "What time did we tell Poppy and Sofia to be back for?"

Poppy and Sofia were currently over at the little play park in amongst our little group of houses. Poppy said she would take Sof over since she was really hyper, insisting that it would help burn off some of her energy.

"Four-ish." I replied, picking up another box which was destined for our room. "They'll probably be back before then though. Even for Sofia, there's only so much swinging you can do in one day."

Just then, Sofia and Poppy came bursting into the room, Poppy giving Sofia a piggyback. "Talk of the devils…" I muttered before making my way over to them. It was then that I noticed that Sof was crying, and had a nasty cut on her knee.

"I am _so_ sorry!" Poppy cried, setting Sofia down so I could examine her knee. "We were racing home, and she fell, and…" She rambled, and I wrapped my arms around her in a hug to say it was okay.

"Hey, it's fine. These things happen." I assured her, before turning back to Sof. "Can you hand me the little first aid kit on the counter?" I asked Poppy, and within seconds she had got there and back and I had it in my hands.

"It hurts, Madre…" Sofia cried, taking Arizona's hand in one hand and Poppy's in the other.

"It won't hurt so much in a bit, I promise, sweetie. But I'm gonna hafta put some stingy spray on it to make sure it doesn't get all yucky." I sighed, and she immediately pulled her knees up to her chest, shaking her head quickly.

"No! No stingy stuff!" She refused.

"It's not too bad, I promise." Arizona tried to comfort her, but she was having none of it.

"Uh-uh!"

Poppy then leant over and whispered something into her ear, and her face relaxed a little.

"Really?" She asked to whatever Poppy had just said.

"Promise." Poppy agreed. Sofia contemplated her words for a few seconds before agreeing, sticking out her legs again.

"You have to do it quickly, though!" She instructed, and I nodded my head, trying to keep back a giggle at how serious she was being over all of this. Though I suppose, to a kid, that this was a major and serious thing.

"I will be." I promised, shaking the little bottle.

Fifteen minutes later, Sofia was all cleaned and bandaged up. She'd fussed a little after I'd sprayed the stuff but overall she was pretty okay, and now one of her teddies was getting bandaged up too. It turned out that Poppy's promise was that she would buy her a sweet the next time we went out, which had made Arizona and I smile. Poppy really was a great big sister.

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Hey, guys! I'm sorry I've not posted since Monday! I just got my new school timetable. It's THE worst timetable in the history of worst timetables. But, I have moooore reasons.

I made a house plan! Basically, as I was writing this chapter I was trying to describe the house the way I saw it, and it was driving me nuts. Sooooo, I got working and made a house plan! Here's a link: potterpire14/you-can-call-it-home-fanfiction-stuff/

Pleeeeassseeee tell me if there are any problems with it! It took me ages to find a way for you guys to access it. I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

You can call it Home

Oh. My. Freaking. POTATOES. So… 11x22 and more Chasing Cars and… ARIZONA'S SCENE. Loveeeeed it. And Callie. Oh my GOD Callie. SHE WAS SO AWEOSME. And I cried… A lot.

Anyyywhooo, I'll shut up and let you read the story like you came to do and not read my rambling.

Happy existing!

Chapter nine- Arizona's POV

I looked down at the thick paper forms in my hands with mixed feelings, studying every word down to the last full stop so that I'd pretty much nearly memorised the whole thing. So many spaces to sign, boxes to fill in, and it was honestly quite overwhelming. Truthfully, I'd expected this to happen, although I'm not so sure why I thought that the day when the papers would be posted through our doors would never come.

"What's up, buttercuuup?" Poppy laughed as she and Grace came dancing into the room, both of them obviously in great moods. When she saw my expression she became more serious and walked over to where I was standing by the door, gently taking the forms and sighing once she'd caught on to what was written on them. "They're taking us to court? Really?" She almost sounded bored.

"I guess we saw it coming." I nodded, taking the papers from her and placing them down on the table beside the door. "I'll talk to Callie once she gets in, and we can contact a lawyer."

"It's really weird, to think of it as court." Poppy giggled. I was glad that she was taking this so well, because we all knew that David and Sarah didn't stand a chance; not with everything that had happened.

"You're coming to Poppy's birthday thing, right Grace?" I asked Grace, referring to the party I'd planned for Poppy for her birthday in three weeks. I suppose you could call it a party, but it was really just a few of Poppy's friend, including Grace, plus a few friends from the hospital coming for a buffet dinner.

"I sure am, Mrs Robbins." She chirped, addressing me in her usual formal manner which I'd brushed off many times.

"Do I have to say it again? Call me Arizona." I laughed and she shrugged her shoulders.

"Sorry, Arizona. It's just a hard habit to break." She giggled and I laughed. It really was.

Twenty minutes later we were all situated around the kitchen table (Sofia at preschool and Callie at work) and the conversation flowed lightly, and we moved onto the topic of the work experience programme going on at their school.

"So what are you guys doing?" I asked.

"I'm going to the animal rescue service, the one just around the corner from the school." Grace replied, taking a sip from her Coke.

"And Poppy?"

She looked up at me and smiled. "Well, I'm not a stalker or anything, but I was looking on the Grey Sloan website and they do work experience, so I got forms for there." She told me.

"That's so cool!" I exclaimed. "I'm on the board so I'll definitely be hearing about that soon."

"You're on the board?!" Grace exclaimed, looking surprised. "Like, as in, the boss of everybody board?"

"I sure am. After the plane crash we got a settlement for fifteen million dollars each. Because it was the hospital that put us on the plane, it caused them near bankruptcy. With a lot of help from the Harper Avery Foundation, we manage to buy the hospital ourselves. So technically, I partially own the damn thing." I laughed. When Poppy had first moved in with us it had been quite overwhelming for her, so I guessed that Grace knew everything. I was okay with that.

"That's awesome!"

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Chaos. Complete and utter chaos, is what described the last week. Of_ course_ the court date would be set on the same week as Poppy's birthday _and_ her work experience, so everything was rushed and we were all going nuts trying to get everything done.

"You ready for this?" I asked Poppy, taking her hand in one of mine and Callie's in the other as we prepared to walk into the court room. Alex had taken it upon himself to become the 'cool uncle' and had taken Sofia out to the fairground so that we could go to this thing.

"Damn right I am." Poppy smirked confidently, not a trace of worry on her face. "Let's go win a court case!"

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"It's still so weird sitting here in the cafeteria with you here." Callie laughed as we sat around a table in the middle of the busy lunch hall.

"It's so weird to be here!" Poppy exclaimed. "But I've learned so much! I was in the nursery earlier, and all the babies are superly cutely adorable!"

"I saw you in there." I commented. "I was speaking with a baby's parents at the time so I couldn't talk, but I did see you. You looked like you were having fun."

"I don't know if it's just having two doctors for parents that's brought on this interest for medicine, but I love it." Poppy agreed, and Callie and I shared a happy glance at her casual use of the word 'parents'.

"Medicine can be tough sometimes, but it definitely is worth it in the long run." Callie said, as both of our pagers went off, both signalling the ER.

"What are the chances someone fell off of their bike?" Callie guessed as she finished off her drink, tossing everything into the bin.

"Pretty high." I nodded before turning to Poppy. "You okay without us?"

"Sure." She smiled, glancing at her watch. "I have to get back anyway. I'll see you guys later!"

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"Mrs Robbins, it's reported that there was an incident just after the new year involving Mr and Mrs Ross, am I correct?" The judge asked. She was currently looking down on me from that now scarily high podium thing, and I could feel myself getting nervous. What if we didn't win? I mean, we'd only known Poppy for four months.

'Shut up, Arizona…' I told myself 'You've got this.'

"You are."

"And can you elaborate on what happened?"

I sighed, deciding from which point I should start at. "Well, I was sitting at the kitchen counter doing paperwork, and there's a knock on the door. At this point, Poppy and Sofia, our other daughter, were still in bed, and Callie was in the living room. I answered it, and David and Sarah were there with the adoption forms we'd sent a few weeks previously. They pretty much invited themselves in, and just started throwing insults at us. How we were a sin that were raising an innocent child to believe wrong, and that we couldn't even provide properly for us if we were living in an apartment." I recalled. "And may I just say that my wife and I are ranked two of the best doctors in the country, and we recently just moved into a house." I decided that now would be a perfect time to throw them a look from across the room.

"It didn't take long for Poppy to wake up, and when she did that's when the real argument started. Poppy asked them why they were there and they said to get her back, and when she told them she hadn't split up with her girlfriend they became angrier. After a while, Poppy made it clear that we were the family she wanted, and that with us is where she wanted to stay. She also stated that we were better parents then they'd ever been, and that if they couldn't accept her that was their fault." I summarised, and she thought over it for a minute.

"Miss Ross, is this true?" She asked Poppy.

"It is. I have no interest in going back to David and Sarah. Especially after David hit me." She stated clearly, and I could tell by what she had just said we had basically just won this thing. If Poppy wanted to stay, and her parents had no reason to want her back, plus David hitting her, it was pretty much already done.

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"I can't believe we won!" Poppy exclaimed, throwing herself into Callie's open arms. We were all laughing and cheering, as we had been from the moment the judge had declared that we should get parental rights over Poppy.

"You were so certain that we'd win anyway!" I exclaimed, hugging her tightly. Over her shoulder, I could see David and Sarah glaring at us as they were handed papers, what I assumed were the adoption ones, from across the room. I smirked a little to myself and let Poppy go, holding her at arm's length so I could examine who I could now legally call my daughter.

"It was really short too." She indicated to the clock which showed us that we'd only been in there for close to two hours. "We really kicked ass!"

"Hey, language…" Callie smirked at Poppy.

"Sorry, mom…" She muttered sarcastically.

"But you're right." She agreed, wrapping one arm around each of us. "We did kick ass!"

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I'm sorry this chapter is kinda late guys! I just moved into fourth year (Year 11, grade 10, I think) which means exams, which means ugggghhh. Plus, I have this group of friends, and we met around Christmas and grew really close and they became my best friends, we all had an argument and we've split up. So I'm going nuts rn. And I'm sleep deprived because I DID NOT stay up all night watching Grey's.

Anywhooooo, you probably don't care. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! What did you think? Leave reviews. Or don't. Just enjoy it. And I wanna know, because I've been thinking about it quite a lot, what do you think about Calzona's current position? Shonda Rhimes said they're MFEO, so why do you think she'd split them up? I have a few ideas, but let me know yours!


	10. Chapter 10

You can call it Home

Hey minions, sorry for another late-ish update. EVERYTHING IS CRAZY. I

I hope you enjoy this!

Chapter two- General POV

"Poppy! Pooooooppyyyyyy! Wake up!" An excited voice yelled, as the owner of the voice slammed the door open and barged into Poppy's room, causing a very abrupt awakening for Poppy. She sat up straight and looked around blindly.

"Wuzzgoinon?" She mumbled stupidly, moving all of her messy hair out of her face. It took her a few more seconds to fully process what was going on, but when she did she gave a big smile to Sofia.

"Helloooooo!" She yawned, pulling Sofia by the waist and dragging her back into the bed with her. She tried to cuddle up and go back to sleep, but Sofia was having none of it. She'd been counting down until this day for over two weeks now, and she was determined to get Poppy out of bed and wide awake.

"C'mon, Poppy! We gotta wake Momma and Madre, now!" She said, pulling Poppy by the arm. Poppy, who decided not to protest any longer, followed after her, running up to her and giving her a piggyback the rest of the way across the room and across the hall.

"Mommaaaaa, Madreee!" Poppy sang as they burst into the room, to find an already awake Callie and Arizona. It was obvious that they'd been up for a while, because they were sitting up, and playing games on their phones. "What game ya playing?" She asked as she and Sofia made themselves comfortable on their bed, pulling the covers up around them all.

"I don't know what it's called, but I nearly beat my high score." Callie sighed, locking her phone and tossing it to the side. Arizona mimicked her actions and they both hugged Poppy. "Anyway, Happy Birthday!"

"Thank you!" She exclaimed, hugging them back. "Can we have bacon for breakfast?"

"Oh I dunno, you might be pushing it there…" Arizona sighed sarcastically and dramatically.

"Oh, come on…" Poppy laughed, dragging her by the wrist towards the kitchen. Apparently, Grace had said she was coming over to see her; she didn't care how early it was. If it was anyone else Poppy wouldn't have taken them seriously, but this was Grace. She really didn't care.

"We present you with wrapped items that we purchased to present to you in order to celebrate the sixteenth year of your living!" Callie exclaimed, gesturing to the pile of presents lying on the couch. Sofia laughed and dragged Poppy over to sit down.

"This one first!" She instructed excitedly, handing her a sloppily wrapped present which she had clearly wrapped herself, and also seemed to be leaking glitter.

"Hmmmm, I wonder who this one's from…" Poppy wondered, feigning curiosity. She quickly pulled the wrapping paper off to find a picture of the two of them. The photo had been taken the day that they had gone walking in the park, and Poppy had proposed the idea of a selfie. As soon as Callie and Arizona had seen it they had demanded that she send the picture to both of them. Along with it there was an assortment of different lip glosses. Poppy wasn't really a girly girl, so glitter wasn't her favourite thing in the world, so apparently Callie and Arizona thought it would have been a great idea to empty a packet of glitter into the wrapping paper.

"I love them! I love this picture! Thanks a lot, Sof!" She exclaimed, hugging Sofia tightly and turning to Callie and Arizona. "I am _not_ cleaning this up."

"Yeah but we're the parents, we could just make you." Callie said sarcastically, sticking her tongue out very childishly.

"Well it's my birthday, so you have to be nice to me!" Poppy shot back, laughing.

"Who said anything about today?" Callie raised her eyebrows before handing her another present, which was neatly wrapped and purple tissue paper.

"Well…" Poppy began before she realised she didn't actually have a reply for that. She began unwrapping the gift, to find there was more glitter in it. She gave them both a joking glare before continuing to unwrap it, trying to get as little glitter as possible all over the place. They had appeared to wrap it in many layers of brightly coloured paper and lots of sticky tape, so it made it nearly impossible to open.

It was definitely worth it though. Once she had finally ripped her way through all of the tissue she was met with a small silver box, which she opened to find an expensive looking heart shaped necklace. She picked it up gently and turned it over in her fingers, and smiled when she saw the word 'daughter' engraved on the side of it.

She was getting way too emotional. She felt like their daughter, they felt like her parents. Sofia was her sister. She knew all of this, but the millionth affirmation that she truly was their daughter swelled her heart.

"You guys…" She trailed off, hugging them both tightly.

"I know it's super cheesy and everything but.." Arizona laughed and Poppy nodded in agreement.

"It is super cheesy." She agreed. "But it's amazing, thank you so much."

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A few hours later, Grace had arrived and everyone was setting up for the dinner tonight. The smell of pasta wafted through the house, and everyone was in a really light and cheery mood. Grace got on extremely well with Callie and Arizona, much to Poppy's relief. Sure, they had met before but they'd never really spent a lot of time together, and it was Poppy's biggest fear that they wouldn't like each other. However, it was a relief when she walked into the living room to find Arizona and Grace laughing.

"What's going on in here?" Poppy laughed as she danced in.

"Well, um… There's a slight possibility that, uh…" Arizona trailed off.

"A slight possibility that what?"

"That my parents surprised us by flying down here and areattheairport?" Arizona spoke quickly, but Poppy picked up every word.

"Seriously?!"

She'd never met Arizona's parents before. She'd heard from them once or twice through a letter or so but she'd never properly talked to them. What if they didn't like her?

"What if they don't like me?" She fretted, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she started pacing quickly.

"They will, don't worry. You're a lot like me personality wise." Arizona assured her, but she kept pacing.

"You don't know that!"

Arizona sighed and went to grab her by the shoulders. Poppy often got worked up very easily. "They won't like you, they'll love you. Because I love you. And plus, they _might_ have went overboard on present for you and Sof."

"Really?" Poppy stressed. "I never know how to react to gifts! I either sound completely ungrateful or sarcastic and fake! And I have no idea what to say to them!"

"Poppy, shut up, eh? It'll be fine. You're stressing for no reason. Just act normally! And as for the gift thing? You reacted perfectly fine this morning, okay? Chill." Arizona began to laugh at Poppy's facial expressions, who obviously had some sort of internal war between calm and crazy going on inside her head.

"Okay. You're right." She sighed, looking over at Grace. "But Grace has to come too!"

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Of course, the airport was unusually bust. It was all you could to not to walk into the ignorant people who seemed to think it was okay to go barging past you, and adding on the fact that they had to look at the sins and different boards to find the flight didn't make things any easier. Callie, Sofia, and now Teddy had stayed at home to continue prepping, while Arizona, Grace and Poppy went to the airport. The decision to leave people at home had been a good once, because it was nearly impossible to stay together.

"They're over there!" Arizona called out, pointing to Barbara and Daniel, who were standing next to the arrivals board next to a suitcase.

"You're a whole five minutes late, Arizona." Daniel said as he hugged her, indicating to the electric clock built into the wall.

"Aw, come on, it's only five minutes. And to be fair, I didn't even know you guys were here until you phoned me from the airport." Arizona laughed, taking Barbara's rucksack.

"Even five minutes late is late, you've been taught that since you were five years old." He insisted and she nodded importantly.

"Yes, sir." She said, before grabbing Poppy by the arm and pulling her forward. "Anyway, back to the reason you're here. This is Poppy!"

There was a round of hugs, and introductions, and a whole load of gushing. Poppy didn't mind, though, because it seemed to be going quite well. Barbara and Daniel were so nice, and so grandparentish. Barbara was in full on gush mode, and Daniel kept quiet but was just listening into the conversation, and his silence wasn't cold, it was natural.

On the journey back home, the Spanish Inquisition seemed to take place, questions were directed at everyone about everything and it was a task to get them all answered before more were asked. It was good though. Arizona never realised how much she missed her mom and dad. With work, and having kids, and just everything, it was hard to find time to contact them. Arizona made a mental note to make time at least once a week to have a phone call with them. After Tim, they'd been left pretty lonely when Arizona had moved to Seattle, so Arizona felt bad for not contacting them anymore.

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"Oh, yeah?"

Poppy and Owen were currently standing by the kitchen door, and Owen was telling her about the different cases and surgeries he'd experienced in his years as a trauma surgeon. She'd met and talked to a number of different kinds of surgeons that night, but trauma definitely seemed the most interesting for her. Just something about not knowing what to expect intrigued her.

"Yup. We were so close to losing that guy, but it was Kepner over there who pushed me to open him back up." He said, indicating to April, who was currently talking to Meredith while they played hide and seek with Zola and Sofia.

"That's so cool…" Poppy smiled. "I mean, the way you saved him. Not the fact he nearly died."

"I know what you mean." Owen laughed, before heading over to start a conversation with Derek.

Poppy turned around just in time to see Arizona, who had obviously been about to give her a fright, sneaking up behind her.

"Aw, damnit!" She fake huffed when Poppy saw her. "It never works on you!" She pointed out, which was true. Poppy seemed to be one of those people who just knew when someone was behind them. "Anyway, are you having a good time?"

"I sure am! This has been so much fun!" Poppy exclaimed entirely truthfully. She really had had a really good time tonight.

"I'm glad you liked it!"

She loved it. It was hard to think that there was a time in her life, not even that long ago, that she hadn't even known these people. She was a true family member here.

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Sooooo, what'dya think? I just wanted to add a fluffy chapter, and I know it got cheesy at some points.

And what d'you guys think about 11x23? I think that whole suspended animation thing was so awesomely cool. I researched it and I was just like, woah. So cool!

Feel free to review, constructive criticism is more than welcome!


	11. Chapter 11

You can call it Home

Chapter eleven- Poppy's POV

Finally, it was summer! I loved Seattle but the amount of rain was ridiculous, but it hadn't rained in two weeks! Touchwood. Please, no rain. I loved the sun!

It had been great recently. Everybody's birthday always seemed to be during the summer, so there had been parties and days out and I'd had loads of fun. Last week, Callie, Arizona, Sofia and I had all gone to the zoo, which had brought on Sofia's new obsession with lemurs. I loved her loads, but if I had to watch Madagascar one more time…

"Poppy! Grace's here!" I heard Arizona's voice ring through the hall of my bedroom, and I smiled. I loved how Grace had just been showing up at random times as of lately.

At school, we didn't keep it a secret that we were together, but that didn't mean everybody knew. When one of the most hated but obsessed over girl in the school, Madison Bryson, who kind of reminded me of Regina George, found out, she'd proceeded to call us names like 'dyke' and had even gone as far as to call me 'unwanted'. I had been able to brush it off easily but Grace had taken it more to heart for some reason which I couldn't figure out, because she was normally the one who had to calm me down.

"Hey, stranger!" I greeted her when I entered the living room. It had only been a week since I'd seen her last, but it felt like ages. We said hello through a quick hug.

"We'll leave you two alone…" Callie smiled as she and Arizona slipped out of the room, leaving us alone. I grabbed Grace's hand and pulled her down onto the couch with me, and we both just stared into space for a while.

"So, uh, Kyle Jamieson is having a party tonight." She informed me.

"Oh yeah?" I said. As I said I'd been to a few parties over the last few weeks, and I wasn't really in the mood.

"You wanna go?" She asked, and I wasn't sure how to say no.

"Hmmm, I dunno…" I yawned, stretching out over the couch, putting emphasis on the pint that I didn't want to.

"Oh, come on!" She laughed, using my hair to pull me back up into a sitting position.

"Can we just stay in? We went to a party last week." I pointed out, getting up and heading to the kitchen to get us drinks.

"Yeah, but I had to practically drag you there." She countered, sitting on one of the stool around the island. I could tell that she was getting annoyed, because I'd passed on going to the fairground the other day too.

"Can we just skip it, please?" I asked again, sticking out my bottom lip in a put, trying to get her to lighten up. I knew Grace; once she got even a little bit annoyed then it took ages to get her back in a great mood.

"But I really wanna go!" She murmured, batting her eyelashes. It appeared two could play at this game.

"But I don't!" I exclaimed, handing her her drink. I sat down on the opposite side and took her hand, and was slightly hurt when she pulled it away. Was she really getting upset over this? I didn't want her to be. Should I just give up and go?

"You never do though." She pointed out.

"Excuse me, I went to one last week, and then there was that day at the theme park the weekend before, and Carrie's pool party!" I reminded her, but she was having none of it.

"But I was looking forward to it!"

"Oh, please." I rolled my eyes. "You probably got the invitation yesterday. And if you really wanna go, then go. You don't need me to do that."

She did a kind of double take, and it appeared that that had stung. But it was true, if she wanted to go that badly.

I sighed and stood up, instantly feeling sorry for what I'd said. I knew Grace liked to do things together, to prove that our relationship wasn't any different from anyone else's. "I'm sorry, I really am. And if you really want to go, then I will too."

Her whole face lit up. "You will?"

"Yeah." I agreed. I guess it couldn't be that bad. "But you have to help me pick out what to wear."

"Okay!" She giggled, taking my hand and leading me through to my room.

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"Back by midnight." Arizona told me strictly. Her and Callie had been really lenient about parties and things, unlike Sarah and David, which I was thankful for. When I'd still lived with them I'd hardly been able to ever go out at all, because all I'd do was study, because of their obsession with me getting the top grades. I get that they wanted me to do well, and if I wanted to be a doctor then I'd need the good grades, but it was like holding me hostage in my room while everybody else went out and had fun.

"Okay. Thank you for letting me go!" I thanked them as I hugged them both before taking Grace by the hand and leaving.

I was surprised, when we got there, at how busy and upbeat the party was. It was like the parties you only ever saw in the movies, and I doubt Kyle's neighbours would be very happy with the volume of the event. However, I decided to quit worrying about everything and joined the party with Grace, and we easily fit in with the crowd of dancing people.

However, the good time could only last for so long. All of my worrying reappeared as soon as I saw Madison Bryson strutting up to us, holding a half full cup, and I was obvious from the way she was walking that she'd had a bit too much to drink.

"Aw, look! It's the sinned lovebirds!" She shouted, attracting the attention of a few people around us, who began laughing at the state of her.

"Get lost, Madison." I snapped, taking Grace by the arm and trying to pull her away, but Madison stopped us.

"Actually, I no. I'm not gonna take orders from a little dyke like you." She sneered. I laughed internally; was that really the best she could do?

"And I'm not gonna take insults from a drunk bitch like you." Grace countered, to a chorus of 'oooh's from our now rapidly growing audience.

"Jeez, Torres, you should control your girlfriend." She mocked me, half tripping over her own feet as she did so. She turned red as everyone laughed at her.

"You should control yourself first." I spat, and I hate to admit that that was a pretty lame comeback.

"Maybe you should control your parents. Oh wait- you don't have any!"

That was what got me angry. "Well you need to get a reality check, because as you'll see, I do!" I began to raise my voice, and was Grace's gentle hand on my shoulder that kept me from marching forward and bitch slapping this idiot.

"_I_ need a reality check?" She laughed incredulously. "You're the one that actually thinks that all of this new happy family stuff is real! That _they_ actually want _you._" She sneered.

That was it. I wasn't going to hit her, she was too drunk and I'd probably get in deep shit for it. Instead I pushed past the crowd and headed upstairs, Grace hot on my heels.

"Are you okay?" She asked me, pulling me into a tight hug.

"Do I look okay?" I snapped, instantly regretting it. I sighed and hugged her back. "I'm sorry. It's not your fault."

"It's not." She agreed. "But it's not yours either."

"I just hate her so much." I cried, collapsing into a nearby chair.

"Yeah, she's a real bitch." Grace giggled, and I soon found myself laughing too. Who cared about Madison? I had Grace, and Callie, and Arizona, and Sofia, and Olivia, and that's all I needed.

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Hi guys! This chapter was pretty hard to write it, and I think it's a new dose of writer's block… Ugh.

But on a happier note, I posted a new story, called We're Awesome! You should check it out!

Happy existing


	12. Chapter 12

You can call it Home

Hi bees, I'm sorry for the late update! Everything being crazy plus my lack of motivation to even get out of bed these days is are causing a lot of things to be going undone round here, but I'm hoping it gets better soon!

And thank you all for your amazing reviews; I'm glad you like it! They always make me smile.

Anyway, here's the chapter! I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter twelve- Poppy's POV

We sat like this for a while, on the edge of the bed, my head in the crook of her neck and her arm around my shoulder, both of us just staring into space, replaying the whole incident that had taken place tonight. I was still confused as to why I got so angry, because I was used to insults. I was a teenage girl, and teenage girls were bitchy. In high school, there was rarely a day that went by were there wasn't some form of drama, and I was normally able to shake it all off. Normally, but not this time.

"You okay?" Grace murmured softly into my ear for the umpteenth time that evening, lacing her fingers through mine and looking my straight in the eye.

"Yeah, I guess. I'm just all tense."

"Hmmm..." She trailed off, kissing me on the forehead. She then moved on to kiss my mouth more passionately, unlacing our hands and bringing hers up into my hair.

I was okay with make-out sessions. Actually, more than okay. It was a great way of de-stressing, but when her hands started wandering lower and lower, and we began to lie back little by little, and I could see where this was going, I wanted it to stop. Without breaking the kiss, I straightened back up and took her hands in mine to stop her.

However, she just let my hands go and kept going, and her hands were getting alarmingly close to the waistband of my jeans, and as we laid back we were too close to lying down for my liking. I loved Grace, I really did, but I wasn't ready for this, and I had to stop it.

"No, Grace, stop…" I muttered, trying to break the kiss and pull away. She however didn't appear to hear me, or if she did she just didn't pay attention, and instead deepened the kiss further. "Stop!" I exclaimed, gently pushing her off my and standing up, pulling down my shirt and fixing my hair.

"What the hell?" She sighed angrily, standing up beside me.

"I told you, I'm not ready for that…" I murmured, looking down at the floor, unable to look her in the eyes after all of that.

"You said that last time too! Are you ever going to be ready?" She ran her hands through her hair vigorously and started pacing impatiently, her cheeks flushed and her hands shaky.

"I don't know!"

"Or is it just me?" She asked, her eyes slightly hurt, even though I had done nothing or said nothing to hurt her. "Well?" She persisted when I didn't answer.

"I don't know, Grace!" I gave an exasperated sigh, grabbing my coat from the back of the chair and shrugging it on. "I don't exactly have a lot of experience in these things!" I cringed as I realised how that would have sounded, but it was too late, because I had said them.

"And I do?" She asked, her voice softening. "Is that what you mean?"

"No! No, no, no!" I exclaimed, "That's not what I meant at all!"

"Okay." She said, pursing her lips and looking me up and down, before sighing and relaxing her shoulders. "But I don't think this is going to work out, I mean, in a relationship."

I felt my heart sink. I was about to argue back that we were fine, and that we were great together, but I knew she was right. We weren't going to work. Sarah always told me that being the same would be boring, but Grace and I were just _too_ different, and we always fought.

"You're right." I agreed weakly, doing my best to hold it together. I knew were this was going.

"We'll still be friends, for Olivia." She continued.

"And that way we won't argue."

"Because we're more like friends anyway."

"Okay."

And that was the last thing that was said before I hurriedly left the room, trying to keep my tears at bay at least until I was alone and on my way home. I walked quickly and briskly down the noisy street, checking my watch as I went, and I saw that it was quarter t midnight. Shit. There was no way I'd be home by then.

I was right, because when I stumbled into the house at ten past both Callie and Arizona were waiting in the hall, both with their arms crossed and wearing identical glares.

"Where have you been? You're ten minutes late!" Arizona hissed, before she caught a glimpse of my face and her expression softened a little.

"Madison Bryson, she told me that you didn't want me. I was okay, I really was, I just went upstairs, and Grace followed… And we were on the bed and she wanted too… But I didn't and we fought and…" I cried, my voice breaking off as I finally reached the end of my brief and hurried explanation.

"Oh goodness, I'm so sorry!" Callie exclaimed and they both rushed forward to hug me, before pulling back.

"I know you have a reason." Arizona began. "But you're still late. We still have to ground you. However, you can keep your phone, but you can't go out, and you're on dishes duty. You were ten minutes late, that's ten days." She said strictly.

I was about to open my mouth and complain, to say that it was ridiculous for just ten minutes, but I stopped myself. From what Arizona had told me about her childhood, it could have been much worse. And plus, ten days wasn't too long and I'd probably get a lot of the homework that I was trying to put off until the end of the summer done.

"Okay." I sighed. "That's fine."

After that, it was more relaxed. "Okay, now let's get you some hot chocolate and you can tell us in better detail."

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Hmmmm, what did you think? I know it was short, but I feel like I made progress here. I love Grace, but I feel like Poppy's changed a lot and I could see them breaking up anyway.

Guess who has a three hour long performance tonight, sixteen pages of biology homework, five rehearsals, and a school show? Plus packing and organising (ugh, organisation) for holiday? Meeeee!

But, I'm not complaining. Because I found an online site that has all 11 seasons of Grey's on it, that I can get on my phone. This does not help my social life in the slightest. Le link below:

/featured/1

Have fun!


	13. Chapter 13

You can call it Home

Chapter thirteen- Poppy's POV

The next ten days weren't too bad, to be honest. I mean, washing dishes wasn't fun and staying inside during the summer wasn't the best, but it gave me a lot of time to think about everything.

I'd decided to go down the being friends route, like Grace had said. Or at least I was going to try, because truthfully speaking I knew that things were going to be awkward and never the same again, but it was for Olivia. She was my best friend, so I at least owed it to her to try. That's why as soon as the ten days were over and Callie and Arizona had deemed me free, I'd made it number one on my priority list to go and visit Olivia and explain everything.

"I'm so, so sorry that I haven't called or texted! I didn't have my phone, I was grounded!" I explained in a rush as she led me through to her room once I'd arrived. When I arrived she'd been so relieved, because Grace had told her everything, but she hadn't heard from me and didn't know what happened to me.

There was an extremely highly awkward moment in the hall, where we'd walked right into Grace. In my head I'd practically had a metal World War 3 over what to say to her, but she got there quicker and smiled a quick 'hi!' before continuing on her way. I watched her go with a sad look, and Olivia dragged me into her room, shoved me onto the bed, pulled over her computer chair and sat there staring at me.

"Okay! Spill!"

And so I told her everything, every last detail. I wasn't sure on how much she'd heard of it from Grace, who I wasn't sure if she was even talking about it, si I told her everything, completely honestly.

"Oh." She said simply, her face blank. "That's what happened. Grace just said you guys split up, and she didn't say anything else. I'm so sorry, Poppy." She said, hugging me tightly.

"Why are you sorry? I should be. It's gonna be all awkward now." I sighed, leaning back against the wall. "But we agreed to be friends, so we're trying."

"It won't be." She insisted, although she herself didn't look entirely convinced. "If you two start arguing I'll just tell you both to suck it up."

I laughed at it, and with that laugh the nearly non-existent tension melted away, and we moved onto easier and lighter subjects, which involved a lot of bitching about Madison Bryson. I know it wasn't great to talk about people who couldn't defend themselves, but who could blame me? She was such a bitch!

"Oh well, I better go." I smiled as I looked down at my watch. "I know it's not been long, and I don't have a curfew, but I just got ungrounded and I don't wanna push it."

"Okay!" She nodded understandingly. "I'll see you tomorrow, though, right?"

"You can count on it." I confirmed. The least I could do was be there for her. Grace and I splitting up had left her in a really awkward situation and I hated to do so.

"Hey, Chicca!" Arizona greeted me as I walked round the house and into the backyard, where I could smell the clear trademark smell of a barbeque, and there was a few people there including Teddy, April, Jackson and Alex. There was faint music playing while Sofia played ball with Alex and everything was very movie-summer like. "This kinda happened." She laughed, and I joined in, going over to join the ball game.

Soon enough our neighbours, a cute old couple from across the street, Mr and Mrs Morris had joined in and they had brought their dog, Cal, over. It wasn't long before Jackson had declared the barbeque food ready and everyone had eaten, and I'd invited Olivia over, telling her to bring Grace over if she wanted. She'd immediately texted back saying she'd be over soon, but Grace had homework. I secretly wondered if she actually did have homework, or if she was just avoiding me, and I decided that the latter seemed more likely.

"We should get a puppy, Madre." Sofia commented to Callie. Recently, she had been pretty much begging for a puppy, and I had kinda joined in, and both Callie and Arizona were running out of reasons to say no.

I think Callie thought I missed the sly glance, smile and nod she shared with Arizona across the garden, but I didn't.

"That's a great idea Sof! Why don't we go tomorrow and get one?" She suggested, and Sofia's scream of excitement was so high that only the said new puppy would be able to hear it. We all watched in amusement as she did a little victory dance, then stopped and immediately started firing off questions about all things puppy.

"What's up with Sof?" Olivia asked me when she arrived, where I was standing watching Sofia dance around.

"Callie and Arizona finally agreed to get a puppy."

"That's so exciting!"

"So tell me." I started in a more serious tone. "Did Grace actually have homework?"

Her face fell at this, and I could tell she was internally struggling on what to tell me. I instantly felt bad.

"Don't worry, it doesn't matter." I said quickly, before changing the subject. I was going to have to get used to this, not being able to know what was really going on with Grace. If she wanted to be friends, why was eh avoiding me? Because even though I didn't have any evidence I knew she sure as hell didn't have any homework.

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"So how're you doing? With this Grace thing?" Callie asked me while we sat in front of the TV that night after Sofia had gone to bed. The volume however was turned down low and we were all doing different things like reading and looking up puppies.

"She's avoiding me. Already." I admitted, tossing my book to the side and crossing my arms. "She only said hi when I went over there before she practically ran away, and she pretended to have homework when I told Olivia to invite her over too today."

"Why would she avoid you?" Arizona asked, placing a hand on my shoulder. "I thought you agreed to be friends."

"You tell me." I muttered sarcastically, raking my hand through my hair and throwing it behind my shoulder. "I knew it was going to be super awkward but she could at least try, for Olivia if nothing else."

"I see." Callie said, hugging me. "Well, you're holding up your side of the agreement. If she wants to avoid you, fine. At least you can say you tried."

"Right." I sighed, closing my eyes and letting myself relax and breathe for a second. "I know it's not late, but I'm wiped. I'll see you guys tomorrow!"

"Okay." Arizona smiled, holding up her phone to show a picture of an adorable cute puppy. "Look forward to an overly excited hyper Sofia!"

"I'll probably not be any better, to be honest! It's so exciting!" I exclaimed, imitating Sofia's happy dance before laughing and heading through to my room.

As promised, I planned to meet up with Olivia the next day, so I texted her once I got settled in bed.

_Hey, wanna go shopping tomorrow? Invite Grace too, but tell her she doesn't have to. – P x_

_Sure! Grace has a 'thing' on tomorrow.- O x_

I frowned as I looked down at the text, betting 100% that Grace was completely free tomorrow. However, I decided to brush it off and let her avoid me all she wanted. As Callie said, I was holding up my side of the agreement. If she wanted to avoid me, fine. At least I could say I tried.

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Hi guys!

I'm going on holiday on Thursday (to Florida) and I have a show on Wednesday, so I'm going to be gone for a while, but I'll try to get as much uploaded as I can through all of this craziness!

Georgie- Do you even know how much that made me smile? Thank you! I'll try to update as fast as I can!

RikNik- I know, I'm sorry! The site's called Putlocker. I hope you can find it!

AZsirl- Maybe, maybe not…

Happy Existing!


	14. Chapter 14

You can call it Home

Chapter fourteen

"I think this is the one!" Arizona exclaimed as she held up a little King Charles spaniel puppy, which was wriggling and squirming and trying to lick her face. The little thing was so incredibly adorable and a little ball of energy, it was perfect for us. I knew it would probably get hair everywhere and bark a lot, but it was all worth it.

"I love it!" Sofia exclaimed, and the lady who had been showing us each puppy laughed and patted the puppy's head.

"So is this the one you're going for?" She asked Callie and Arizona. They shared a brief look and a nod to each other before smiling and confirming that he was definitely the one we were taking home.

Half an hour later we had signed all of the forms, agreeing to certain things and being informed of what vaccinations he'd need, and we agreed that we would pick him on Monday afternoon after his quick vet visit, just to make sure everything was okay.

One the car journey back home the conversation has loud and many different names were suggested and tossed around, and with eve new suggestion Sofia got even more and more excited about the new member of our family. I was really excited too.

I still hadn't heard anything from Grace, and by the way things were looking I wasn't actually going to get a chance to even see her until school started back up again, and I hated that. _She_ was the one who said we'd still be friends; _she _was the one who'd brought up the issue of splitting up. If she was just going to avoid me, why did she even say she would try in the first place?

Was she seeing someone else? It was too soon. We'd only been split up for, like, eleven days, and if she could move on that quickly then I had no idea what the hell our relationship meant to her. And I was also annoyed at myself for obsessing over it so much, because I knew deep down that things would be different. I was being stupid.

"Hey, since it's nice weather and is supposed to be for the rest of the week, why don't we take a drive and find a theme park tomorrow?" Arizona suggested from the passenger seat, and her question was answered with a chorus of 'yay!'s. I loved theme parks. David and I would always ride all of the crazy rollercoasters while Sarah watched with baited breath and insisted that we were off our heads.

For the rest of the Car journey the topic of conversation drifted between the new puppy or our trip tomorrow, and I found myself forgetting about everything.

The next day came around quickly, and we decided to leave quite early in the morning so as to avoid as many long lines as we could. However, it seemed that they were unavoidable. When we arrived there, we had to wait about half an hour in the line before we could go to the d4esk and purchase tickets.

"This is boooooring…." Sofia sang as we shifted forward a few steps forward.

"Hey, can you see that rollercoaster over there?" I asked her, pointing over to where we could see the top of one above the trees.

"Oh yeah!" She exclaimed, standing on her toes. "That looks scary!"

"Well, Imma ride it!" I announced. "That is, if this line ever actually moves."

"I'll ride it with you!" Callie agreed, studying what we could see of it.

"I'd ride it, but they have rules against prosthetics and above knee amputations and stuff." Arizona sighed. "Me and Tim used to do all of the crazy ones, it completely freaked my mom out. But hey, I'll just hang with Sof, right?!" She nudged Sofia's shoulder.

"Yeah, cuz I am _not_ going on that." She stressed seriously, making us all laugh.

By the end of the day, Callie and I had ridden almost all of the coasters in the place, and Sofia was hyper from the high amounts of cotton candy she'd consumed while waiting on us.

"We'll get puppy tomorrow!" She kept reminding us over and over in the car whenever the conversation drifted away from him. "And we don't have a name!"

After a while the names started getting a little ridiculous, but it seemed that we all agreed on one.

"I like Charlie." I decided with a note of finality.

"Me too! It's cute!" Sofia chirped.

So, on Monday, we brought Charlie home. He was shy at first, but the minute we opened the bag of treats he snapped right out of it, and now he was sitting contently on the carpet just munching away.

What surprised me, though, was when Olivia showed up at the house just after dinner, accompanied by Grace. She said a quiet 'hi' and talked to everyone else like usual, but was cooler towards me and hardly said two words.

"I had to practically drag her here." Olivia admitted as we watched her and Sofia trying to teach Charlie his name. It was amusing as whenever they called his name he would look around him, as if expecting this Charlie person to show up. "She kept looking at all of the photos you posted earlier, and eventually just told her to come with me."

"So she's just here for Charlie…" I conclude, whether to Olivia or myself I wasn't sure. I mean, she showed up here, barely said a word to me, and talked to everyone else normally and played with the puppy.

"Oh, I don't know…" She replied uncertainly, not even convincing herself.

"Hey, it's okay." I decided. "At least she'd being nice to them. And plus, he is pretty cute." I added as Sofia hugged him for responding to his name for the first time.

Well, whether she was here just to see Charlie or not became clear after a very awkward encounter in the kitchen, which resulted in them leaving and me hiding out in my room for the rest of the night.

"So, he's pretty cute, huh?" I said to her as I poured some Pepsi into a glass.

"Yeah." She replied quietly, focusing on the squirming puppy in her arms.

"I'm surprised Sofia let him out of her sight." I laughed, concentrating very hard on the level of liquid being poured.

"Mmmm…"

Seriously? She couldn't even have a conversation?

"Can we have a conversation? Or is it just going to be like it's been so far?"

She scoffed a little and looked up at me. "What do you mean, 'so far'? It's been two weeks!"

"You know what I'm talking about. You've been avoiding me." I said, shutting the fridge door a little more aggressively than I had intended, and I could hear the contents of it rattling as I stood in silence.

"It's not easy, you know!"

"You're not even trying!" I accused. "I've invited you over; I've told Olivia to bring you shopping with us!"

"That's exactly my point, Poppy!" She exclaimed, setting Charlie on the floor, clearly exasperated. "You're trying too hard! I knew it wasn't gonna work, even being friends, but you just kept trying! That's why this is happening!"

Wait, what? So now it was my fault? For trying?

"Okay, so it's my fault for trying to keep a friendship? Or for at least trying for Olivia's sake? She's your sister!"

She ran her hands through her hair, clearly trying to think of something to say. Eventually, she dropped her hand and relaxed, shaking her head.

"I know, Poppy. I tried to try, that's why I came here… But I can barely say two words to you, it's so awkward! And maybe it's better for Olivia that we just call it, because it's not fair for her to have to go back and forth!"

I studied her for a minute, soaking in her words and letting them hurt. So, she didn't want it? Okay. Fine.

"Okay. Great. Well, I'll see you around." I said simply, picking up Charlie and walking out of the room. I didn't bother stomping, or slamming the door, or saying anything to anyone. I just headed up to my room.

Not long later, Callie and Arizona knocked softly on the door and I told them to come in, hastily brushing tears from my face and sitting up straight.

"You okay, sweets?" Arizona asked, wrapping her arm around my shoulder

"Yeah." I replied bitterly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Olivia explained everything before they both left." Callie informed me.

"Yeah, well, I guess I can stop trying so hard now."

Just then, Sofia turned up at the door with Charlie, who had escaped my grasp pretty quickly, at her heels.

"Here, have a hug and a Charlie!" She said, squeezing me tightly before lifting Charlie up onto the bed. I pet his head softly and smiled.

"Thanks, Sof." I smiled, pulling her in for another hug. "I feel better now."

"Good, because no one gets to make my sister upset!"

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I was so excited to upload, I missed writing so much! I kept having ideas popping into my head over the two weeks but I couldn't write them and it was driving me crazy.

I know this chapter is kind of random and disjointed, and I'm not really sure that I have an explanation for that… It just kinda happened.

Anyway, Happy Existing!


	15. Chapter 15

You can call it Home

Ugh, school. Whose idea was it to make us go? Because that guy deserved a kick in the ass. Most days I enjoyed school, and loved to learn things and all that, but some days I just wanted to sleep. Especially because I had to watch Grace flirting with this new girl and it was sickening, although probably just for me.

On the bright side, we had planned a trip to Miami over Christmas to visit Callie's family, none of whom I had met yet, and I was only a little nervous. For now. As it got closer to the time I would probably find myself freaking out majorly, but for now I felt pretty calm about it.

"I'm hoooome!" I called into the house as I arrived home, kicking my shoes off and laying them beside the door. I next pulled my jacket off and hung it on the coat rack before wandering through to the kitchen, wondering why there was a lack of reply.

I relaxed, however, when Sofia ran up to me and hugged me. I bent down to hug her back when I noticed her face was tear stained. I looked up at Callie and Arizona, asking the silent question, before Sofia started to explain everything.

"Poppy! There's this boy in my class called Kyle and I told him about our family and he said it was silly because you can only have one mommy and one daddy, and I couldn't have two mommies and that momma doesn't love me because she didn't have me in her tummy like mommy does, and you didn't love any of us because you weren't in anybody's tummy!" She rambled, speaking almost too fast for me to keep up. When I processed it all, however, I felt my anger bubble up.

"What? His parents let him think that?" I exclaimed, hugging Sofia tightly, and I could see Callie and Arizona nodding their heads from over her shoulder.

"Momma told me that you love me. Do you?" She asked shyly, as though she actually feared that what that boy had said was true, and that broke my heart.

"Of course I do!" I laughed, looking her in the eye. "You're the best sister ever!"

"Yeah?"

"Totally!"

She then looked over at Arizona, who was smiling too. "And momma loves me too?" She asked, turning back round to face me.

"She sure does! She's the best mommy ever, same as Madre. She always talks about you." I assured her.

She giggled. "What does she say?"

I thought about it. "She says you're the best daughter ever, and she loves being your mommy and that you love pizza, and you're very ticklish…" I trailed off, beginning to tickle her. She started to squirm and wriggle in my arms, but I held her tight and continued tickling her arms. Soon Callie and Arizona joined me, all making sure that we had her laughing as much as possible.

About an hour later after that I was in my room doing homework when Arizona came in and shut the door behind her. She came over and hugged me tightly. I was confused at first but still hugged her back, and when I pulled back she had tears in her eyes.

"Oh, what's wrong?" I asked, sitting down on my bed and patting the space beside me. She sat down and dried she corners of her eyes with her sleeves.

"Thank you, for what you said today. I hear that so much."

"I was only saying the truth."

She smiled at me and laughed. "That's cheesy. But what I mean is that because I didn't want kids in the beginning, and I'm not biologically related to Fia, people _always_ said that I'm trapped with a child that I never wanted. I don't get it so much with you, because you're not a baby and I was the one who found you, but I've had it from day one with Sofia."

"I'm guessing Callie assures you all of the time that biology doesn't matter?"

"Yeah."

"It doesn't. You love Sofia, right?"

She smiled wider than I had seen her smile in a while. "Yeah. And you."

I smiled at that. "And we love you. The rest doesn't matter."

She laughed a little, obviously remembering something. "I remember telling Callie that, just after she told me she was pregnant with Sofia, and we were both still processing it. 'You don't get to tell me that we're not together. We are together. Because I love you and you love me, and none of the rest of it matters'."

I smiled. I could totally imagine Arizona saying that, although it was weird to imagine her and Callie ever not being together. "See? Even if you can't remember our words, at least remember yours."

She hugged me and we sat like that for a few minutes. Eventually stood up, announcing that she had dishes to do before dinner that she'd been avoiding for too long.

"Has she ever done that before?" I asked Callie that night as we washed the dinner plates, which were all covered in pasta remains.

"Arizona? Oh yeah. It's the one thing, no matter how mad you are, that you never go to with Arizona. She loves Sofia, and you, for that matter, so much. She can take hate for the cheating, for Africa, for anything but you and Sofia."

"I don't know why she worries. She's a great mom. So are you."

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DON'T HATE ME I KNOW IT'S SHORT I'M SORRY. But I saw this post on Tumblr that said that Arizona never wanted kids and then she keeps saying that Sofia is hers, and it made me mad which fuelled this chapter.

But I promise I'll have something better in the next chapter!

Happy Existing!


	16. Chapter 16

You can call it Home

General POV

Poppy felt, to put it quite literally, like shit. Her head hurt, her throat hurt, her stomach hurt… Ugh. However she knew it would be over within a matter of days, but because it was the flu and the flu spread, Arizona had also been lucky enough to have caught it also. She'd complained about how much she hated to be at home doing nothing instead of at the hospital helping tiny humans, but a hospital containing already sick people wasn't exactly the best place to be while sick.

"This is hooooorriiiibleeee." Poppy groaned as she rolled over on the couch, trying to find a position that was comfortable. She had been tossing and turning for over an hour, and was quite frankly sick of it. Why did the flu have to be so damn contagious? That was the only reason that she was even at home and not at school.

"I hear ya." Arizona grumbled from the other couch. They were both currently lying on the couches in the living room, watching some crappy reality show that none of them even enjoyed and was just on for background noise. She sighed as she sat up; finally accepting that rest wasn't going to happen any time soon, she picked up her crutches which were lying beside the couch and began making her way through to the kitchen. Poppy also sighed in defeat and decided to follow her.

"Ew, people." Poppy shuddered as she checked her phone, only to see a few hateful messages. This was a regular occurrence now, but it was easy just to ignore them and block the bitches.

"Just ignore them, it gets easier." Arizona advised, starting to pour over a stack of patient files that always seemed to follow her. She began making notes, deciding what approach would be best for each patient and what she could safely rule out.

"Do you still get hate for it? Even after school?" Poppy asked, watching Arizona write down different things intently even though she had no idea what any of it meant.

"Not as bad, but yeah. The worst case" Arizona set her pen down and thought for a moment "was when I had this patient, Billie. She and her whole family were very Christian and one time they saw me and Callie together, and requested a different doctor."

"Well that's not great."

"No." Arizona sighed. "But people believe what they believe, and we don't have to worry about it."

The next few hours passed as the rest of the morning had- slowly and boringly. With the help of Tylenol both of them were able to catch a little sleep, but only a little and then they were back to wandering the house, bored out of their minds.

"What are they talking about, 'not his daughter'?!" Arizona exclaimed to the TV, currently showing Jeremy Kyle. Yup, their boredom had taken them that far. "He loves her, doesn't matter about blood and DNA and all of that crap!"

Poppy could tell that she was still thinking about what had been said about her not being their mom. Over the past 11 months Poppy had learned that when something happened, Arizona would let it bug her for ages, and no matter how many times they told her it wasn't true, she would keep going over and over it in her head.

"Exactly! Screw biology!" Poppy added. "Well, not blood, because we kinda need it to keep us alive, but not to make us related to people."

She saw Arizona smile from the corner of her eye and felt glad that she could say something to make her feel better about it. She knew Callie had had a moment when Poppy had told her about what everyone had said at that party, but she never got it as bad as Arizona did.

It was about two in the afternoon when Arizona finally announced that watching TV wasn't gonna help them feel better, and decided that their bedroom could do with tidying.

"Sof was so small…" Poppy trailed off as she looked at one of the photos that were taken during Sofia's first few days of life. Understandably, they didn't keep these photos on show on the mantelpiece, but they would never throw them out because they were such a great reminder of how far they'd come.

"I know." Arizona agreed. "There's so many times when I just look at these photos and be amazed. It's always something that I think about when she learns something new, or says something that sounds like it came from a teenager."

"I always remember when I used to go and visit David's aunt and uncle during the holidays. Aunt Mary would always be knitting clothes for the preemies in the hospital, and she taught me how. I'd always make them too big. The little hats were so tiny." Poppy remembered.

"I work with preemies every day; I couldn't believe how shocked I was." Arizona said quietly. "Even now, with premature cases, Alex has to ask if I'm okay to do it- because of Sofia."

"Hey, it's okay." Poppy said, placing her hand on her shoulder as she saw her begin to tear up.

"If I had just waited, just until we got to the hotel, I took my eyes off of the road…" She whispered, never taking her eyes away from the picture. "I know Callie said it wasn't my fault, everyone does, but I can't help but wonder if she sometimes does blame me."

"You know you're being stupid, right?" Poppy asked. "There was no way that you could have prevented what happened. No way, do you hear me? As you said, the truck came out of nowhere."

"It just…" Arizona trailed off, collapsing onto the bed and covering her eyes with her arms.

"And if I remember correctly, you were the one to get Sofia's heart beating in the first place." Poppy pushed.

"I was, but her heart would have been just fine if I'd just kept my freaking eyes on the road!" Arizona exclaimed, her anger at herself building up.

"Look-" Poppy sighed, lying down on the bed beside her. "Callie's fine. Sofia's fine. Right?"

"Right."

"And as much as everyone in the whole world wishes they could, there's no way to take the past away. So quit blaming yourself because there's no one to blame here."

Arizona thought for a moment before turning around ad giving Poppy an amused smirk. "You're like, ten years older mentally, I swear. When I was 16 I would have never had such a conversation with my parents."

"Well, someone's gotta tell you to snap out of it, because it's clear that you don't listen to Callie."

"True."

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Hi guys, sorry it's late!

These scenes between Poppy and Arizona are weird for me to write, because I could never imagine me having a conversation like that with my parents. I kinda get along with my parents more as friends, or so it feels like, but it's not a bad thing, it's just a thing.

Anywhoooooo, feel free to leave reviews (constructive criticism always welcome), and I hope you enjoyed it!

Happy Existing!


	17. Chapter 17

You can call it Home

Chapter seventeen- Poppy's POV

"Wake up, daughter for a year today!" I heard a voice sing from the door. Due to Arizona being a very cheery morning person I found myself being woken up like this often, and would normally have stayed right where I was and continued sleeping. However, today was different so after a minute of letting my eyes adjust to the light I jumped up, nearly head-butting the wall as I tripped over a shoe, and hurried over the door to hug her.

"Feels more like sixteen years, to be honest." I admitted in all honesty. I may have only known these guys for a year, but it felt like they'd been my family for my whole life, and I couldn't imagine it any other way. Well, I could, since I'd done it for fifteen years, but it didn't feel like it. I still contacted my aunt and uncle, because they were halfway to accepting me, but it was a rare thing.

"Yeah, I get what you mean." Arizona nodded as we made our way through to the kitchen to find Sofia and Callie messing around. They seemed to be dancing, although it wasn't as much dancing as it was spinning in circles waving their arms around. And to think this was a normal thing for them.

"Morning, buttercup!" I exclaimed as I hugged Sofia, using my favourite nickname for her. It was actually kind of weird how little Sofia was ever grumpy. I mean, of course she had moods and tantrums, and I'd experienced a few myself, but those were rare and she always seemed in a good mood. I guess she took it from Arizona, who always seemed happy herself. Callie and I however were more calm, and had often had to stop them dancing around before they hurt themselves.

"Poppy!" She greeted me. "Madre said that you've been here for a whole year!"

"Well, Madre was right!" I said, watching her eyes go wide, as if a year was an unfathomably long time.

"That's such a long time!" She exclaimed, then looked deep in thought as her smile drooped. "Does that mean you're leaving? I don't want you to." She asked as she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

I raised my eyebrows and hugged her tighter. "Oh no! I'll be here forever. I'd never leave." I promised and the smile that had so easily vanished reappeared again.

"Good! Cause I love you." She told me deadly seriously and I felt my heart melt.

"Oh, well I love you too." I said, before turning round to give Callie a hug too.

The rest of the morning was spent lazing around, since Callie and Arizona both had the day off and it was Saturday, so none of us needed to be anywhere. Sofia spent a good half hour begging me to go out into the garden and build a den with her, and after a while I agreed. We spent most of the day, accompanied by Charlie at our heels, trying to find different ways to make it stand and still be safe, and it wasn't until Callie and Arizona insisted that we give it a break and come in for dinner that we finally went inside. It took us a few minutes to de-layer- it was the end of November so the weather wasn't exactly warm any more.

"There's no snow in Miami, though." Sofia pouted as we discussed our upcoming trip to Miami, to take place in just under three weeks. It was a little weird, thinking of Christmas without snow.

"Yeah, but there's Abuelo and Abuela, and Aunt Aria." Callie said. Apparently, although I had no idea when, Callie and her family seemed to have reached an acceptance of sorts, apparently when Aria had announced she'd had enough of ignoring her sister and knocked some sense into Carlos and Lucia.

"Yeah, I guess." She replied, seeming to get over the fact that there was no snow, and instead began to talk about what country Santa visited first.

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"Thank you, Christmasss!" I sang as the final bell before the holidays went. I knew from the weight of my bag that there was no way I'd have no work to do over the holidays, but the fact that school was ending and I'd be in Miami next week made me more than glad to get out of here.

"Ooooh, look, Clara Jorris is coming over!" Lizzie whispered into my ear. Clara Jorris, who was in my Chemistry class, was actually insanely cute. We'd talked a few times since the year had started and to be honest, I'd develop a bit of a crush on her, which Lizzie went out of her way to point out whenever Clara passed in the hallway. My head snapped round in the direction Lizzie was pointing to see that she was indeed making her way over.

"Poppy, Lizzie, hi!" She exclaimed as she walked up to us, flipping her long brunette hair over her shoulder. She smiled at us and I found my brain going crazy.

"Hi, hi Clara! D-do you need Chemistry notes?" I stuttered, slapping myself mentally. Who even says that? Ugh. Clara was actually really smart, one of the top in the class. "I mean, uh, I just noticed that you weren't here the other day, sooo…" I tried to correct myself but it just made me cringe more. I could feel Lizzie shaking with giggles beside me and I resisted the urge to elbow her in the side. She was _not_ helping.

It came as a relief when instead of looking offended, Clara laughed and waved her hand. "Don't worry; I got them from Miss Wynne yesterday. Thanks for offering." She said, standing there for a moment.

"So…" I trailed off, not wanting to be rude, but the halls were emptying out quickly and she didn't seem like she was going to say anything.

"Oh, sorry! I forgot!" She laughed, playing with her hands and looking more nervous. "I was actually going to see if I could talk to you?" She asked. I turned round to Lizzie who hadn't seemed to catch on yet and gave her a pointed look.

"Oh, right!" Lizzie exclaimed, as though a lightbulb had turned on above her head. "Call me later, Poppy." She said seriously, giving me that knowing look. Ever since Grace and I had stopped talking Olivia and I had kind of drifted, and I found myself getting closer to Lizzie as a friend.

"What's up?" I asked Clara as I continued emptying books from my locker into my bag, which was increasing in weight as I piled them in. I tried my best to keep my head on straight as she started talking again, this time with a less confident tone.

"So, um, my mom owns this restaurant, and I was wondering that if tonight youwouldgoonadatewithme?" She rushed the last bit, and I could hardly make it out.

"Come again?"

"I was wondering if you'd go on a date with me tonight, to my mom's restaurant." She repeated a bit slower and calmer, and my brain went haywire. Before I could even think I found myself agreeing, and before I knew it we'd made plans.

"Mom, Madre!" I called into the house the minute I burst into the door, probably scaring them with the urgent tone of my voice.

"What, what is it?" Callie asked as they both came rushing through, Charlie following them closely as he began jumping up at me. I took a deep breath to calm myself down and pet him for a minute before reciting the whole incident that had just taken place to them. They listened intently, both of them with smiles.

"Well, it's about time." Callie laughed and Arizona nodded in agreement, making my confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on." Arizona laughed, leading us all through to the kitchen. "I've never even seen her, but you weren't exactly keeping your voice down while you were talking to Lizzie about her the other day."

"Oh my God…" I gasped, face palming and probably turning bright red.

"It's just cool that she's taking you on a proper date, it's so adult." Callie said. "Normally in high school, it's 'call me, we'll hang out'." She remembered.

"It's definitely not a bad thing though." Arizona completed for her, returning to the dishes she'd obviously been halfway through when I got home.

"Where's Sofia?" I asked curiously, realising that I had yet to see my favourite five year old.

"Well, since we're off to Miami next week she was saying how much she'd miss Zola, so she's over at the Dream House having dinner." Callie informed me. 'Dream House' was the everyone used for Meredith and Derek's house, because 'Dream House' literally summed it up. I'd only ever seen it when we dropped Sofia off or picked Zola up from there, but I'd seen it enough to know how amazing it was.

"Anyway, don't you have a date to get ready for?" Arizona smiled, and I felt my heart skip a beat. I'd actually nearly forgotten that it was actually tonight, and as I remembered I started freaking out.

"I don't know what to wear!" I stressed half an hour later as I stood in my bedroom, surrounded by clothes that I'd discarded onto my bed. Arizona then appeared at the doorway wearing an amused expression. "It isn't funny!"

"It kinda is." She admitted, walking further into the room and sorting through the clothes. "What restaurant is it?"

"Ceebos, it's Italian." I told her, remembering the details that Clara had told me earlier. She was to pick me up around six and we would head over.

"Oooh, Callie once took me there on a date, back when our relationship was still new." She smiled. "I had the worst case of floordrobe that day, and Teddy sat there and laughed for ages before she was any help."

"So what do I wear?" I sighed, casting a hateful look over the clothes. She thought for a minute before sorting through the pile, before pulling out a beige skirt. "This," She instructed, still rummaging, "and this." She finished, holding up a simple, black, long sleeved t-shirt.

"Are you sure?" I asked apprehensively, and she nodded confidently.

"Just put the clothes on and come through to the living room when you're done." She said.

It took me barely any time at all to get ready, and once I was I had to admit Arizona had done a good job. This outfit was pretty cute.

"See, I told you!" She exclaimed once she saw me, and Callie nodded in agreement.

"She's right, you look great." Callie added.

"Thanks!" I smiled, looking at the clock on the wall. "I only have an hour!" I exclaimed, noting the fact that my hair was still in a messy ponytail and my eye makeup was probably smudged.

"Relax." They both called at the same time as I headed back to my room. I spent half an hour trying to get my hair to stay put, because it was turning into a big frizz ball, when I decided to put it half up half down, so as to keep it out of my face. After that was done I re-applied my makeup before grabbing some black flats and shoving them on. Just in time, apparently, because the doorbell just rang and I checked myself over in the mirror before heading out.

Too late. Callie and Arizona had already opened the door and were chatting to Clara before there was anything I could do about it. I peeked round the corner, relieved to see that she was dressed no fancier or more casual than me, and walked out a little more confidently than I felt.

"Clara, hi!" I greeted. "My moms aren't interrogating you, are they?"

"Nope, just talking!" She laughed. "We'll be home by ten." She told Callie and Arizona, and after a few more words we left.

The conversation in the car was a little awkward, but quickly relaxed more as we chatted nonchalantly. We were greeted by her mom at the restaurant door, where she guided us to 'the best seat in the place', just by the window, and left us alone while she got drinks.

"My mom loves working here, she's very enthusiastic." Clara laughed, and I wasn't sure if it was a warning or not. We took our seats and I looked around, surprised by nice it was here.

"It's really nice here, you mom does a great job." I commented.

"I always loved growing up around here. I'd hang out in the kitchens and steal food all of the time. Mom used to tell me not to, but she never actually did anything to stop it." She said. "Your moms seem pretty cool. I've only ever been on one date before and my mom was going nutso."

"Don't worry, they're probably freaking out right now. " I laughed. "Maybe not as much as David and Sarah would, but definitely freaking out."

"Oh yeah, that's right." She mumbled, as if remembering something. "Was it weird, y'know, when you first met them?"

I thought for a minute before answering. I'd never really thought much about this, but I realised how quick it had all been. "Well, yeah, I guess so. I never really thought about it, it all felt so natural at the time. I guess it was a little awkward, because I was living with them before I even properly knew them."

"Yeah. Not that it's the same, but when I was seven my dad got this girlfriend who had two kids. It was weird at first but now they're just as much my siblings as they would be if we were related by blood."

"It is the same. It's like that with Sofia. Neither Arizona nor I are related to her by blood but that doesn't mean we don't love each other."

"Exactly."

The rest of the night ran smoothly, and we made it home by ten as promised. I gave Clara a hug at the door, gave her my number and promised that we'd do it again sometime before going in and spilling all of the details to Callie and Arizona, who had of course been waiting for me to arrive home.

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Hi guys, sorry this is late, and I wish I had an excuse, but I don't. School starts up again soon over here (ugh), so I can guarantee that they won't be as often. Sorry!

And also, just as I read through this story, I realised how short the chapters are. I'm working on it!

Anywhooo, Happy Existing!


	18. Chapter 18

You can call it Home

Hi guys, I've just posted a new story called Being Arizona, so if you're interested then you should check it out!

Enjoy!

Chapter eighteen-Poppy's POV

"Flight 401 to Miami is now boarding…" The nearly unintelligible and nasally voice droned through the intercom of the airport, grabbing my attention instantly and making my sigh in relief. The moment I'd been waiting for for ages was here, and my excitement and nervousness were causing World War Three in my head right now. On one hand I was excited to be in Miami, to meet Callie's family and have a great time, but on the other hand I knew how badly this could go and it scared the crap out of me.

Arizona was also just as nervous as I was. Although she got on well with Carlos, she hadn't seen Lucia since the day before her and Callie's wedding, so things would be reasonably awkward. Also flying was obviously still an issue, and even before we got on the plane I could see how antsy she was getting. I don't think Callie was as nervous as we were, but if she was, she was just way better at handling it than us. Sofia, on the other hand, wasn't nervous at all and had spent ages talking about how she and Carmen (Aria and her husband James' daughter) were going to have lots of fun.

"You ready?" Arizona asked as we stood up, each with a hand luggage bag each.

"As I'll ever be." I replied confidently, not missing the fact that her hands were slightly shaking and she kept casting apprehensive looks towards the other planes that we could see through the window. I knew this was a big deal for her- from what she'd told me, she'd only been on one plane since the crash, and she had nearly freaked out and left.

"No other choice." She smiled; I could tell she was trying to be positive. I nodded and set off towards the direction of the gates, following Sofia who was dancing ahead of us. It didn't take long for the security guards to check and stamp our boarding passes, and the ever so cheerful flight attendants greeted us on the plane.

"Look, Sofia, there's the outside of the plane. You have to touch it for good luck." I told Sofia and she did so, sticking her hand out to touch it. She stood there in amazement for a second before turning back to me and leading the way onto the plane. She'd never been on a plane before, and she had so many questions about so many things. I smiled at the flight attendants as we walked passed and headed to our seats. When we got there I found that was in the middle aisle in the middle seat next to Sofia who was on the aisle seat, and Callie and Arizona were directly opposite us. I noticed that Arizona was deliberately taking her time with the hand luggage and seemed to be talking to herself.

"Why are there screens?" Sofia asked as she studied the screens that were built into the back of each chair. It was a relatively short flight, only five hours, but it was long enough to get bored. I spent tie explaining to Sofia what they were and how we couldn't use them until we took off. I didn't even notice that the plane had started moving until the stewardess started going through the usual safety precautions. I wasn't sure why I listened to them, because I didn't even know how much of it I would remember if we were to crash. 'It's surprising the things you remember in moments like that.' Sarah always told me.

Take off went completely smoothly and Sofia loved it, leaning over to see out of the windows. I looked over at Callie and Arizona and smiled. Arizona seemed to be clinging to Callie's arm for dear life and had her head on Callie's shoulder with her eyes shut. She seemed okay.

The flight went smoothly without many issues- about halfway through Sofia decided that she was bored and wanted to be in Miami already which caused her to be in a bit of a mood, but as soon as the attendant came round with the lunch tray she perked right back up. It wasn't long after that that the pilot was announcing our landing, an before we knew it we were touching down in Miami, more than ready to get off of this plane.

"We made it!" Arizona exclaimed in relief and excitement as we walked through the arrivals gate, having already collected our luggage. We had a bit of an issue when Callie and Arizona's hadn't showed up, and we were about to do something when we noticed it coming towards us on the carousel.

As we walked through the gate we were met with the surprise of Callie's family, a lot of them, standing there holding signs that said 'welcome to Miami' and stuff like that. As soon as they saw us they cheered. It was quite cool, actually, and I almost forgot that I had never met these people before.

Introductions were done quickly. There wasn't much said before we head out to the car, and the whole car journey I spent in silence, listening to what everyone else was talking about, which was mostly catching up with each other. It wasn't long before we reached what used to be Callie's home, and when I saw it my jaw dropped. It was a freaking mansion! Callie had mentioned that her dad owned a chain of hotels so that they were pretty rich, but I didn't expect _this_ rich!

It took a while for people to actually start talking to me. I could tell it was weird for them, it was weird for _me_, but once we got talking everything was okay. I made a friend in Callie's cousin, Elliot, who was the same age as me. He was incredibly funny and always had a sarcastic comment to share. We spent most of the day in the playroom, having been asked by many members of the family to keep an eye on the kids. Callie, as it turned out, had a lot of family, every single one of whom seemed to show up here for Christmas every year. The place was full to the brim but it was cheerful.

When I'd lived with David and Sarah, Christmases were quiet occasions; we hardly celebrated them at all. We woke up normally, exchanged presents, had a normal dinner and went to bed. I hated it. I was what Clara described as a 'Christmas Maniac' because I loved Christmas. Although we never really decorated at home, I'd always go over to Olivia's and make sure that her house looked like Christmas throw-up, and last year at Christmas with Callie and Arizona I hadn't held back in the slightest.

"Do you ever miss them?" Elliot asked me as we sat in the corner and watched the kids trying to re-enact the Nativity play. I knew he was referring to David and Sarah, and it took me a while to come up with a good answer. I mean, sure, a part of me missed them, but the bigger part of me knew that if I'd stayed I would have been unhappy, and that I deserved people who accepted me.

"I guess sometimes." I sighed. "Like there are just random times where I'll remember something they said, or something they'd do that made me smile, and I'll miss them. But then at other times, like when I was with Grace and broke up with her, or now I have Clara, I just remember what they would've done if I'd still lived with them. What they _did_ do." I said. "And when I spend time with Sofia I find myself missing them less, or when Callie and I have to stop Arizona stressing over something irrational, I realise that this is my family now, and I love them." I finished, only half caring about how cringe worthy that was.

"Yeah, I guess." He smiled, just as Lucia shouted through the house to announce that dinner was ready. It was complete and utter chaos in the kitchen and dining room- kids and adults everywhere, people carrying plates and bowls and all sorts of dishes filled with food, trying desperately to make it through the crowd without it ending in disaster. People were shouting to be heard and I found myself closing my eyes to try to drown it out, but after a minute I gave up and adjusted to the craziness that was the Torres family Christmas.

"So, you survived the first day." Callie laughed sometime after dinner, when we were all scattered around the house doing different things. I was supposed to be sitting with Sofia watching Home Alone, but she had lost interest a while ago and had went off to find Carmen.. It was my favourite Christmas movie.

"Yup! Everyone's really nice." I laughed.

"What were you expecting? Horrible, mean judgemental people?" She laughed and I shook my head.

"Nope. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it turned out fine."

"Have you heard from Clara?" She asked.

"Yeah, she texted me earlier. Her brother's driving her nutso."

The rest of the night was uneventful, apart from a few moods from kids and broke decorations. This place was so pretty- it was like a Christmas movie. A massive Christmas tree stood in the corner of the living room, decorated perfectly with handmade decorations, topped with a beautiful angel. Tinsel lined all of the railings on the stairs, and several fake white reindeer stood outside on the lawn, accompanied by fairy lights. The thing that stood out the most, though, was even when nobody was baking, it always smelled like banana bread.

I was staying in a room with Sofia, who had spent the day running around and worn herself out, which caused her to fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. It had taken a while to convince all of the kids to go to sleep, because they didn't want to be separated. It was only with the promise that they would see each other first thing the next morning that they finally retreated to their rooms.

I decided to text Clara, since I hadn't heard from her since this afternoon.

_I have survived my first day. Send me an award. – P x_

_*Hands many awards* Go you! You get back on the 29__th__, yeah?- C x_

_I do.- P x_

_My mom's parents are having a massive New Year's party, you're invited. Yu can bring Callie, Arizona and Sofia too. – C x_

_I'll have to check with them but it should be okay. – P x_

_Okay. I have to go, everyone's driving me crazy. I'll see you. – C x_

_Okay. Good luck, try to refrain from murdering anyone. - P x_

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Hi guys, hope you enjoyed this! Next chapter- Christmas! It was really weird writing this in August. Feel free to leave a review


	19. Chapter 19

You can call it Home

**Okay, don't hate me, I know it's short, BUT I HAVE A REASON! So basically I was halfway through writing this chapter when my mind started going crazy with ideas for the next chapters, and none of it would go with this chapter, and I then developed writer's block on this chapter hence the shortness. I'm sorry! But I've got stuff planned, proooomisssseeee! **

Chapter nineteen- Poppy's POV

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" Lucia finished with a smile, closing the book and setting it down on the table. As it turns out, the Torres family were big on cheesy Christmas traditions; hence we all sat in the living room reading '_The Night Before Christmas'_ with hot chocolate. It was Christmas Eve and each one of the kids was extremely hyper, and I didn't see them getting to sleep any time before the rest of us woke up.

"Is Santa here yet?" Hannah, Elliot's little sister asked impatiently, climbing eagerly over the back of the couch and looking out of the window.

"Not until everyone's asleep." Her mom, Aida, answered, looking up at the clock. "Speaking of which, it's bed time!"

As expected I took longer than usual to get everyone to bed. There were multiple sleeping arrangements altered so that kids could be in the same room but still have adults and what not. By the end of the night I was in a room with Arizona, Sofia and Carmen. Arizona was currently on the phone, apparently with someone from the hospital because I didn't understand a word she way saying. She sighed as she set the phone down, clearly pissed off.

"Ugh, interns." She groaned. "I don't know how they even got a job there. 'Breathing human being needed- intelligence optional'."

I laughed at that. Normally Arizona was the one telling Callie to give the interns a chance, considering they were new to this and probably had no idea what to do. "Just give them a chance." I mimicked what she had once told Callie.

She glared at me jokingly. "I'll give them a chance once they stop phoning me in the middle of my holiday."

Surprisingly, it didn't take long for me to get to sleep. Normally on Christmas Eve I would find myself awake at all hours of the morning, but this time I fell to sleep easily enough. I think it was the hot chocolate.

"Poppyyyyyyy!"

A very excited and high pitched voice was what I was woken up with the next day. I groaned and rolled over in bed, silently thinking that if I ignored it, it would go away. But then I remembered what 'it' was and what day it was, and suddenly I was wide awake.

"Merry Christmas boo!" I exclaimed as I pulled Sofia into a hug. I glanced over her shoulder and saw Callie and Arizona sitting on the bed opposite, and Carmen was nowhere to be seen. I figured she'd went to see her own parents. I then noticed a big sack at the end of Arizona's bed. "Presents, Sofia, look!" I pointed to her and she laughed in excitement, jumping down from the bed and grabbing the bag.

"Okay, the ones wrapped in red are Sofia's and the ones in silver are Poppy's." Callie announced. Just then I remembered the gifts I had bought and looked into the bag, glad to see that they appeared to be in there.

About half an hour and many presents later we made our way downstairs, greeted by cheers of excitement and laughter, and everything was very noisy. I didn't mind though, although I had to admit I got anxious when Sofia nearly broke a very expensive looking Santa statue.

"I just had to escape for a moment." Arizona explained when I found her alone in our room when I came up to get my new sweater. "James doesn't like me, I'm sure."

"How can you be sure?" I asked and raised one eyebrow, beginning to rummage through the mess that was my bed.

"I don't know." She sighed, leaning back onto the bed. "You know when you just know someone doesn't like you? Yeah."

I studied her face for a moment, and I could tell that there was more. "Are you okay though? You look off." I asked, sitting down next to her on the bed. She looked up at me for a second, clearly contemplating whether to tell me or not.

"I'm just stressed. My interns keep calling, even though their resident is actually in the same state as them, my physical therapist called me because I completely forgot about my appointment, I keep thinking about Tim, and it's not even that much but it's getting to me." She finished. I wrapped her in a hug.

"Sometimes you just need to stress. Just tell your interns to get lost, you're being too nice. I don't know what to say that will make you feel better about Tim, because I don't imagine there's much I could say." I said, drawing away. "And you still have to get physical therapy?"

"Only every six months, just to make sure the prosthetic's fine and that I'm walking right and stuff. Just a check-up, basically."

"Right." I nodded. "Well, imma go back downstairs because there was something mentioned about singing, and I've never heard Callie sing before, but from what I've been told she's great."

Turns out what I'd heard was right. Callie did have an amazing voice. She started with Christmas carols, but to high requests from the kids she quickly moved onto Disney songs and it wasn't long before people started joining in. I can't believe I had gone fifteen years without experiencing a proper, traditional family Christmas, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

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	20. Chapter 20

You can call it Home

**Hi guys! I need to be serious now. I'm thinking of moving the rating of this story to T, because some of the stuff that's coming up is really intense. No smut or lemons or that kinda stuff, but serious stuff. **

**And also, yay for twenty chapters!**

Chapter twenty- Poppy's POV

"So he just asked you out? Just like that?"

School had started back with a nasty vengeance. As I stood in the hallways that reverberated with the sound of one hundred simultaneous conversations and the high pitched squeak of people's sneakers, I wished that I could be back in Miami. It was rainy and snowy in Seattle- in Miami the weather was beautiful even in winter and everyone was so chilled. Nothing like back here.

"Yeah!" Lizzie exclaimed in excitement. We were currently gushing over the fact that one of her choir people, Zach had asked her out over Christmas. Apparently he'd been thinking about it for a while and had just grown the balls to do it. Personally I didn't like him. It was a wonder that his head even fit through the doors these days, and he was just _weird._ You know when you just _know_ when someone's not worth trusting? Like that.

But hey, Lizzie had had a crush on this guy for years so I wasn't gonna burst her bubble. "That's great!"

Just as I finished up with my locker and started locking it again the topic of our gossiping came strutting towards us. He smiled at Lizzie and kissed her when he reached us. Okay, so was it completely crazy for me to think that it might just be a quick kiss because we were in the middle of the hallway? Apparently so. It wasn't until I actually had to clear my throat to get their attention that they stopped. Neither of them looked in the least bit embarrassed, and when the bell went off I was glad to make my way to class.

"I love him so much…" Lizzie sighed as we took our seats next to Clara, who was busy writing away in her notebook. That was a thing about Clara- she had a different notebook for, like, every single day of the year and every one of them was full to the brim.

"You've only been dating him for a week." I reminded her. Clara decided that now was a good time to become aware of the world around her and popped her head up, her brows furrowed.

"Been dating who for a week?" She asked.

"Zach Evans." Lizzie giggled, glancing to the back of the class where he was sitting and giving him a soppy, slavish look that I dearly hoped she would never do again. While she wasn't looking I gave Clara an 'I know, right?' look behind her back- Lizzie was acting completely different.

"Anyway, you're coming to my house after school." I told Clara who promptly started freaking out. She'd never met Callie and Arizona before, and because it was one of the rare days when they both had the day off, they'd told me to invite her over for dinner.

The rest of the class was super boring and long. How the hell did Callie manage to speak fluently in two languages? I was only completely fluent in sarcasm, and apparently that doesn't count. Just like being able to balance a grape on your nose doesn't count as a talent. Ugh, life was hard.

"Your house is nice." Clara complimented as we walked in. The place was actually pretty tidy, but the smell of smoke coming from the kitchen was alarming. We both quickly headed through to find he kitchen engulfed in smoke, and I could just decipher a cursing Arizona in the middle of it, waving a dish towel around and trying to reach the smoke alarm on the roof without any success.

I burst out laughing and reached into the cupboard for the broom, which I then used to poke the little button on the smoke alarm. I turned round and smirked at a very flustered Arizona, who was looking into the oven with a bummed look on her face. "Who let you cook again?"

"Ha-ha. You're funny." She deadpanned. "Callie got paged into an emergency, and she should be back soon, but I tried to make lasagne, and it was going well until…" She trailed off, casting a reproachful glance at the charred contents of the bowl, which did _not_ look like lasagne.

"Okay, well…" I tried to keep in my laughter. "This is Clara. Clara, this is Arizona." I introduced them, and Arizona's head snapped round to where Clara stood, obviously just realising that she was there.

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs Robbins." Clara smiled, and I laughed at the memory of this conversation. We'd debated for a while over whether to call her Miss Robbins or Mrs Robbins or Mrs Torres and after a while we decided on Mrs Robbins. I don't even know why I went with it, because just as I'd expected, Arizona waved her hand and smiled.

"Nonsense, call me Arizona. It's nice to finally meet the person Poppy never shuts up about." She smiled. I could feel my face turning red.

"Mom!" I exclaimed.

"And just so you know, I don't always smoke out the house when I cook. That was a onetime thing. I'm actually a decent cook."

I rolled my eyes and smirked at them. "Yes, charcoal is her speciality. Come on Clara, we have homework." I said and then grabbed Clara's hand and dragged her out of the room before she could point out that we didn't have any.

"Well she's nice." Clara commented as we both collapsed on my bed.

"Yeah. Arizona's the one most likely to tell embarrassing stories, while Callie will probably interrogate you, then spend the rest of the night winding me up for fun." I told her. Last night when I'd though over what was going to happen today I'd made a list of worst scenarios, who would say what an what topics I should avoid.

"I'm sure they're perfectly fine." She laughed, playing with our linked hands.

"We have a pretty crazy life here. We were actually discussing someone's intestines over dinner the other night as if it were perfectly normal."

"Where's your sister? Sofia, right?" She asked, and just then I realised that she hadn't been there. I scanned by brain for a conversation where someone had told me where she was but I came up blank. I quickly crossed the room to the door and opened it.

"Arizona?!" I yelled.

"What?!" I heard her call back after a few seconds.

"Where's Sofia?"

"Gymnastics!"

I frowned at that. Gymnastics? "Gymnastics?"

"Yeah, that's a thing now. She started today!"

I shook my head as I closed my door again, making my way back over to where Clara was sitting. "I never even knew."

She nodded and stayed quiet for a minute. That was something about Clara- she thought a lot; the complete opposite of Grace. Grace was upbeat and hyper, and always had something to share, whereas Clara was quitter, still talkative but quiet, and a lot calmer. "So what d'you think about this Zach Evans guy?"

"He's a complete asshole. But if you ask Lizzie he's completely amazing and handsome and loving." I laughed. "I'm trying to like him."

"Lizzie was acting so different." She commented, standing up and beginning to pace. Another thing about her is that she never seemed to sit still for longer than five minutes, except in class.

"She's gone all sappy on us." I agreed. Just then I heard someone knock on the front door and heard Arizona answered it. Whoever it was must be a friend because they only spent a few minutes talking before the person entered the house. "Let's go investigate." I said to Clara, who nodded and followed me.

"April's here!" Arizona announced to me as we re-entered the kitchen, which thankfully was now smoke free. April was sitting at the table, and her red eyes and slumped shoulders alarmed me. I looked up at Arizona who gave her a sympathetic look.

"I had a fight with Jackson." She said simply, then gestured o the bag next to the door. "You'll have to put up with me for a few days."

A quick introduction was done before Clara and I headed to the living room, not bothering to turn on the TV as we started to discuss anything and everything.

"So tell me more about you family. Your mom and dad divorced, and now he's married again and you have two siblings?"

"Yeah. They split when I was real young, like two. My dad used to be… angry, and he hit her." She revealed and I frowned. "My mom tells me everything, she hates lying, which she would have to do if I ever asked how they split, because that was why."

I placed a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry. Did you ever worry that it might be the same with his other wife and your siblings?"

She nodded vigorously. "All the time. But my dad's…he's changed. A lot." She explained, and I understood. Sometimes people change. She seemed to have told enough because she changed the subject. "So do you call you moms 'mom', or just Callie and Arizona? Because you called Arizona mom, then you called her Arizona."

I thought for a second. "Yea, I did. I guess I just kinda switch between them. If I do, I call Arizona mom and Callie Madre."

"And when's Callie gonna be home?"

"I dunno." I admitted, glancing at the clock. "Arizona said soon, but soon for Arizona could be from now until midnight. Hospital hours are crazy."

Talk of the devil, and he shall appear. Or she, in this case. Something like that. Not two minutes after we'd finished talking about her, Callie came waltzing in, well not so much waltzing as walking normally. I smiled at Clara before getting up off of the couch and heading through to see her.

"Madre, Clara. Clara, Callie." I introduced them as I'd done with Arizona, and it wasn't long before they were having a conversation about something I wasn't paying attention to. Being the good girlfriend that I was, I ditched Clara with Callie who was probably interrogating her and went through to the kitchen to see if Arizona needed help.

An hour later, we were all sitting round the table, Sofia having arrived home with gymnastics with plenty of stories and Callie having managed to save dinner. What was supposed to be lasagne was now chicken Marsala, and it was amazing.

"See what I mean?" I muttered to Clara as they discussed Callie's work on a man's femur, not caring in the slightest that it was pretty disgusting when eating.

"It's so cool though." She smiled. And with that comment I could tell that she was going to fit in well around here.

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I hope you enjoyed this! My words of advice? Pay attention to Zach….

**Guest- Thank you! I'm excited to post what I have planned next, thanks for reading! **

**AZsgirl- I'm glad too! **


	21. Chapter 21

You can call it Home

"I'm _not _talking to them."

"You should."

"I should not. I want nothing to do with them. They ditched me; they gave up the right to see me."

Today had started out normally, school and homework and all the other normal things that get done around this place .I also hadn't had to deal with Zach since he wasn't at school today, so things were great. All until Callie and Arizona called me down to talk.

"I just think it's worth considering. They just want to know that you're alive.2 Arizona persisted, and I shook my head defiantly.

Apparently, David and Sarah had contacted them, to see if they could talk to me. God knows why, since they hadn't seemed to care for the last year since they saw me. Apparently, the wanted to know if I was okay. Apparently, they wanted to know how _school_ was going. Apparently, they _cared._ A load of crap, right?

"No it's not, I don't need them. I have two perfectly awesome parents, an amazing little sister, and a great group of friends. Why would I need them?" I asked angrily. I had no idea why they were even considering this- surely they must hate them more than I did, given the fact that they didn't know them?

"It's just you're their girl, even if they're not your parents, and…" Arizona tried to explain. I rolled my eyes. I was their girl? Their daughter? I mean, I guess it's completely fine to throw your _daughter_ out on the streets and give her an ultimatum. I must be being _ridiculous._

"Well that's good for them. They miss me? Their problem. I'm their daughter? Their problem. They kicked me out on the streets? Their problem, not mine, not your, theirs." I said with a note of finality, getting up from the couch and going back to my room, where I had a half- finished English essay due for next week. I managed to divert my mind from the details of the conversation my over-elaborating on why the author used the simile 'like a cobra', but it didn't last for long.

How could Callie and Arizona even consider letting me talk to them? They beat me, kicked me out on the streets and I had wandered them until I found Arizona. _Why_ on _earth_ would I want to talk to them? They'd had their chance- that day they showed up at school, when they showed up at the apartment, they could've asked and I probably would have forgiven them. I'd have never gone back to them, but forgiveness is better than nothing, right? But no, they'd given me ultimatums, insulted me and my new family and David had hit me again. They blew their chance, and majorly.

The next day at school I did my best to suck it up, because I really didn't want this topic to be part of our lunchtime conversation. I put a smile on my face and walked into school like nothing had happened at all, but after the events of lunch I would have rather talked about it.

"Hey Lizzie." I greeted enthusiastically, setting my tray down on the table. "Zach." I said as cheerfully as I could, although it didn't sound anywhere near as convincing as Lit did in my head.

"Hey, Poppy." He greeted back, and the tone of his voice made me want to punch him. Then again, every tone of his voice did that. What can I say? He was annoying. He then turned to Lizzie and put a hand on her shoulder. I noticed her flinch slightly and frowned, but decided to ignore it because she probably just got a fright. "I gotta go, Baron's gonna kick my ass if I don't hand in that homework." He told her. He then pulled her in for a kiss, and like usual I looked away so as to avoid watching their not-so-casual display of affection.

I turned around when I saw another figure join the table, smiling when I saw Chloe. She was more Lizzie's friend than mine, but we'd grown to be friends and she was a welcome distraction from the show going on across from us.

"Hey, how you doing?" She asked, taking a bite from her apple.

"Fabulous." I muttered, chancing a glance over at the other side of the table, sighing in relief when Zach stood up and made his way out of the cafeteria.

"You know, you could at least try to like him." Lizzie said in a very clipped tone.

"I acknowledged him, didn't I?" I pointed out, continuing with my lunch.

Most of the rest of lunch went smoothly, all until I noticed a purple bruise on Lizzie's forearm when her sleeve slipped up. I eyed it suspiciously. If it hadn't been for her flinching when Zach touched her earlier on I would have dropped it, but now I was curious.

"How'd you get that?" I asked, indicating to the bruise. Her eyes bolted down to her exposed forearm and she quickly rolled her sleeve back down.

"Oh, I just hit my arm off of the bedside table during my sleep." She covered, but I could tell she was lying. Do I say anything to her? No. I'll just leave it for now.

"What's gotten into you?" Clara, who had joined us about ten minutes ago, asked me gently.

"Nothing." I lied. "Nothing, I'm fine."

The rest of the day went by relatively uneventfully, unless you count Zach and Lizzie little spat about the fact that he hadn't handed his homework in, and had instead gone to play football. All in all, I was more than glad when I could put my books in my locker when the bell rang and head home.

HA nope.

It had been going well, and I was just saying bye to Lizzie when I left. Everything was aaaall unicorns and rainbows until I leaned in for a hug (yeah, I was a person who hugged people now) and she'd flinched away. Plus, I noticed yet another bruise on her left shoulder. I took a second to put it all together, and when I did I gasped.

"That's another bruise! And you keep flinching away!" I whisper-yelled and she frowned.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She lied, slinging her bag over her shoulder. I narrowed my eyes at her for a moment.

"You do so. I know what I'm talking about. These bruises aren't from clumsiness." I replied and I slapped myself mentally. That's one of the things I hated about myself- I never just waited, or played things cool, I always said what I was thinking when I was thinking it. It was really inconvenient.

She gasped and stepped away from me. "No!" She exclaimed.

"Yeah, okay." I muttered, collecting the last of my books and beginning to walk away. I could feel her stare on the back of my neck but I kept walking, beating myself up for what I'd just done. I couldn't have just left it, could I? I was probably wrong and jumping to conclusions.

This was great. I'd argued with Callie and Arizona, and now with Lizzie. Today was just not going my way.

Once I got home, I dumped by stuff in my bedroom and started cleaning. Obsessively. That was something I did when I was stressed or mad or just bored. It gave me time to think. Was it just me at fault here? Because everybody's minds seemed to be working differently than mine, and I didn't know why.

It wasn't like I was just ignoring David and Sarah, or had just walked out on them randomly. It wasn't like I was just tossing ridiculous accusations at Lizzie, just to start an argument. I wasn't being completely ridiculous here. It _wasn't my fault._

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Hi guys, I'm sorry it's short! I seem to be saying that a lot right now… I'm sorry! A lot of stuff happens in the next few chapters though. A lot happened in this chapter, even though it was short. What d'you think? Leave a review!

Happy Existing!


	22. Chapter 22

You can call it Home

**Hi guys, sorry this is late! School started back this week and I already have three VERY big music performances coming up. Including the Queen, the Usher Hall and an exam. So please bear with me! **

**This is basically just a light fluffy chapter. Well, until the end, anyway.**

**I hope you enjoy this, and may whatever you do today work out right! **

Days passed and I still had no intention of talking to David and Sarah. Sure, I'd thought about the situation a lot, but never once had my mind gone anywhere near accepting their offer. I just don't see why they bothered trying after a year and a half and not as soon as they kicked me out in the first place.

Lizzie hadn't talked to me at all since our incident in the hallway. I could see why to be honest, but that didn't mean I liked it. I'd phoned Clara up when I'd gotten home from school after it and she'd understood where I was coming from and agreed with me, although did point out that I could've been a lot more subtle about it. I'd then gone on to point out that I was me, and I wasn't subtle.

"Are you okay?" Arizona asked as she dropped off a pile of freshly washed clothes onto my bed. I hadn't really talked much the last few days, but I wasn't avoiding them. They seemed to have accepted that I had no interest in seeing David and Sarah and had let it drop. I hadn't said a word to anybody except Clara about Lizzie because it wasn't really a thing you told people, but it still put me in a bad mood when I thought about the fact that my best friend was ignoring me for being worried about something that was probably true.

"I'm great. You?" I said, trying my best to make this a casual conversation, because I knew if it went any further I would spill everything. I was fairly good at keeping secrets and avoiding things, but once someone asked me seriously or kept prying then I spilled everything, because I hated lying. And I did _not_ want either of those things from happening.

"I have a six month old on life support at the hospital right now and his parents refuse to accept that it's only going to sustain the moment of death." She sighed. I guess that would be the hardest thing about being a paediatric surgeon, the fact that they were kids. Arizona told me that although she always looked forward to the next kid, every single loss hit her hard, and that it only got worse now that she had kids.

"That's horrible." I sighed. This was another thing Arizona did. When she wasn't rambling cheesy speeches, she would simply have a conversation with you. I wasn't sure what she did, but at the end of the conversation you always felt better. I'd spoken to Callie about it and she'd agreed whole-heartedly, saying that she had experienced that many times before.

"You wanna come with me tomorrow?" She asked. I'd been to the hospital a few times before and I'd played games with the kids and talked with them and stuff. The way they smiled even though they were ill never failed to make me feel better, and I guess Arizona sensed that I needed it.

"Sure I do!" I agreed, and with that we quickly discussed a few things that would happen before she left, leaving me alone again. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my messages, experiencing more disappointment when there was still no word from Lizzie.

I was at a cross road here. Do I continue to worry or pry her until I confirmed what I knew was true, and possibly lose my best friend? Or do I trust her to handle it herself, which she wasn't doing, and stay on her good side? I had no idea.

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"Aw, you won again!"

It was around 2pm in the paediatric ward, meaning all of the tiny humans were awake and bored of being in hospital. I'd been here all morning and all afternoon playing board games and video games with the younger kids, and just making conversation with the older ones.

"That's cause you suck at crazy eights." Seven year old Macey told me as she collected the cards after winning for the third time. "Dr Robbins isn't very good at it either." She giggled, and Arizona gasped in mock hurt from the door. She'd been pretty busy today so was more than glad that I was here. Sofia was here also but she had wandered off to find Teddy. Arizona wasn't worried about the fact that she was wandering the hospital because for a five year old, Sofia knew the hospital better than they did.

"Hey, I try!" Arizona exclaimed.

It wasn't long before Macey started to get tired and I read a book to her as she fell asleep. A lot of the kid's parent's still had to work even though their kid was in hospital, and it was hard on them. It didn't make them bad parents, just busy parents. Macey had stage three lung cancer and was in today for her second round of chemo. According to Arizona it was going well but it still took a lot out of her.

"Sofia!" I called half an hour later when I found her exiting Teddy's office, Teddy following closely behind her.

"Poppy!" She exclaimed, pointing to Teddy. "I was just saying hi to Aunt Teddy!"

"I can see that." I nodded, smiling at them both. "Hey, Teddy." I greeted her with a hug. Teddy was really awesome. She always took the time to tell me about all of the cool cases she'd had and I'd sat in the OR gallery to watch her a few times. Sofia had made it clear that she thought anything to do with people's insides was disgusting, but I found it fascinating.

"How's it going?" She asked me as we drew back.

"Great, yeah. Just got my butt kicked at crazy eights." I laughed. We talked for a few more minutes before Teddy was paged 911 and she had to leave quickly, so Sofia and I made our way back up to peds. The rest of the day was spent as the first half had went, although I did manage to win monopoly, I was rubbish at board games so this was a major achievement.

"Pizza, pizza, pizza!" Sofia chanted as we arrived home a few hours later. Arizona had been pulled into emergency surgery so it was just Sofia, Callie and I.

"I don't think Sofia wants pizza, Madre." I said to Callie seriously. "I think we should have Brussel Sprouts and Cauliflower." I suggested, knowing that it would get a reaction from Sofia since those were her two most hated vegetables of all time.

"Ewe, no!" She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "Pizza!"

Callie laughed and shook her head. "Okay, pizza it is." She agreed, earning a cheer from both me and Sofia. While Callie unboxed the pizza and put in the oven, Sofia and I had a race to see who could set their side of the table the fastest. That was also another thing that happened here; Sofia and I could make a competition from anything.

"I'm home!" We heard a familiar voice call from the hallway about an hour later when we'd finished dinner, at around 7pm.

"How'd surgery go?" Callie asked as she greeted her with a kiss, before moving aside and letting everyone else give her hugs.

"It was pretty routine, patients in recovery right now." Arizona smiled.

"There's leftover pizza if you want to heat it up." Callie informed her. "It's not the best, but I doubt that you've eaten since lunchtime."

"You caught me." Arizona said mock- guiltily before making her way through to the kitchen. I then resumed my position on the couch where I had been reading some crappy article that probably wasn't even true.

What surprised me though was when ten minutes later my phone lit up, and Lizzie's face appeared on the screen. It was odd for her to call me because one, she never called people, only texted, and two because she'd been ignoring me for the last two days.

"Hey , Lizzie!" I greeted as I pressed answer.

"Poppy." She replied, and I was immediately concerned. She was clearly crying and her voice was full of fear. I glanced around the room before standing up and quickly exiting, taking the conversation away from the happy atmosphere of the living room.

"Come over. You have to help me." Was all she said before she hung up, and the drawn out humming of the ended call rung in my ears.

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**I'm sorry it's short, but we just made some major progress! Next chapter will be up as soon as possible.**

**And also, I'm afraid that this story has limited chapter left. I'm not sure how many yet. Although this thing with Lizzie is important and dramatic, it's not really relevant to the original plot.**

**Happy Existing! **


	23. Chapter 23

You can call it Home

**Let's see what happens…**

Chapter twenty three- GENERAL POV

Poppy was running as fast as she could. With each street she crossed she pushed herself to run faster, not caring that she could trip and fall at any second. She probably looked strange, but she didn't care in the slightest. She had no idea what was going on, but the fear and tears in Lizzie's voice kept ringing in her ears. She crossed roads and moved to the side almost too late sometimes to avoid people, until she saw the silhouette of Lizzie's house in the dark. There were no lights on, no sign that anybody was in.

Callie and Arizona had let her go easily, because they trusted her. She didn't know if it was the fact that it was the weekend or the undeniable tone of urgency and panic in her voice when she'd told them that had made them agree, but that didn't matter. What mattered was getting to Lizzie.

Once she reached the gate she swung in open and raced up the path, immediately starting to pound on the door. She didn't care what the rest of the street must of thought and she doubted very much that Lizzie's parents were in. When no reply came she begun to panic and pushed the door open, glad to see that it was unlocked.

"Lizzie?" She called through the eerily quiet house, beginning to climb up the stairs. She tried desperately to catch her breath, which was burning her throat and lungs, but kept running up. She burst in to Lizzie's room and froze at the sight she was greeted with.

Lizzie was curled up on her bed, pretty much crying her eyes out. All of the lights were off, and from what Poppy could see, she was holding her hand over her nose which was bleeding heavily.

"Oh my god, Lizzie!" She exclaimed and rushed forward to examine her closely. As she looked closely she could see that Lizzie had a massive black eye, her nose appeared broken for the crookedness, and her lip had burst.

"Poppy…" She groaned, rolling over to look at her.

Poppy's thoughts were going a million miles per hour. "Okay, we're cleaning this up, and then we're phoning Callie or Arizona." She told her, getting all of the important stuff done first. Lizzie appeared as if she was about to protest to that, but Poppy cut her off. "They'll know what to do. We only know so much."

Five minutes later they had successfully wiped up most of the blood and changed Lizzie's top which had also been covered in it. They both sat down on the bed and waited impatiently for someone to pick up the phone as it rung over and over and over.

"Hey, Poppy." Arizona greeted cheerily. "What's up?"

"Arizona, you have to get over here. It's Lizzie… I don't know what happened. Her nose is broken and her lip is burst, she might have a concussion and maybe internal bleeding from the bruises on her stomach.. You need to get here fast."

There was a few seconds of silence as Arizona got over the shock of what she had just heard. "Where does Lizzie live?"

Poppy quickly recited the address to her and hung up, sighing in relief at the thought that someone who knew what they were doing was on their way. "What the hell happened?" She asked Lizzie, who had remained silent this whole time. Lizzie brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Zach." She spat out, proving all of the possible situations in Poppy's head right. "We were just talking, and we kissed, and he wanted to go further but I didn't, and he got mad and…" She trailed off, leaving it easy for Poppy to fill in the blanks. That bastard. She always knew there was something wrong with him.

"That bastard." Poppy gasped as she hugged her gently, still not completely sure where she was hurt.

She laughed at that. "Yeah, what a bastard." She smiled. That was the thing about Lizzie. Whatever the situation was, or how bad it was, she always found a way to smile or laugh.

"Get a restraining order put on him." Poppy recommended. "Or if not, whenever he gets within a fifty mile radius of you just call me and I'll kick his ass." She offered.

Lizzie smiled up at her, blinking back the tears. "You'd do that."

"Bitch please, you're my best friend." She replied, just as they heard the front door burst open and loud footsteps coming up the stairs. Poppy panicked for a second, before remembering that they'd told Arizona to just let herself in, and stood up to open the door for her.

"What the hell happened?" She asked in the exact same tone that Poppy had, moving forward to examine Lizzie closer.

"Exactly what I said." Poppy chimed in, before stepping back and allowing Lizzie to recite the story."

"It was Zach. He got mad at me because I didn't want to… You know, and he just didn't stop..." She recited, blushing. Unlike Poppy, Lizzie was a little more hesitant about telling people things. Poppy, however, was just completely blunt about everything. There was no sugar coating with her.

"Well, your nose is definitely broken." Arizona said as she looked her up and down, appraising her appearance carefully. "Poppy said you had bruises on your stomach?"

Lizzie nodded. "He just kept kicking me."

"You're gonna have a few broken ribs then." Arizona clarified. "You may have internal bleeding, so I'm afraid we're gonna have to admit you to hospital for observation, because even if there's no internal bleeding, that doesn't mean there won't be, and there's no way of telling if one of your ribs might puncture one of your lungs.

Lizzie frowned and looked down. She hated hospitals. Ever since she'd gone there when she was six to have her appendix taken out she was adamant that she would never set a foot in one ever again.

"But…" She tried to protest, before realising she didn't have an argument for that. "My parents will be back home soon."

"I'm already phoning them." Poppy held up her phone as evidence, and after a few more minutes of hesitation Lizzie finally agreed.

It was just after nine at night when Lizzie got her room and had settled down. Callie had stayed at home with Sofia so Arizona was okay to stay the night and watch over her, and had been more than happy to be the lead doctor on Lizzie's case. Luckily, it appeared as though none of her rib had punctured her lung, although they would take a while to heal. There was a little bit of internal bleeding, but no enough to need surgery, so it was decided that she would stay in a few days to be observed.

"I finally got your mom and dad, they're on their way." Poppy informed her as she slouched in the chair beside Lizzie's bed. Lizzie's parents both worked in the same place, but it was on the other side of town so they would probably still be a while.

"You should go home, go to sleep. You must be tired." Lizzie replied which made Poppy raise her eyebrows.

"_I_ must be tired?" She asked in disbelief. _"You _should get some sleep. I'm not going anywhere. I'm here while you're here. Until I have to go to school, that is."

Lizzie smiled own at the red head, thankful that she had such a good friend. Although Poppy had just assumed that Zach had been hitting her and never gave him a chance, she had been right. And she was an extremely loyal friend and she knew she would always have her.

"Thanks so much for everything you did tonight" She thanked Poppy sincerely, only for her to brush it off.

"Pfft, it's okay." She smiled, not looking up from the virtually uninteresting magazine she was 'reading'. Unlike Lizzie, Poppy didn't do mushy moments. However, it was unavoidable.

"No, seriously. When I phoned you, you dropped everything to come over. You didn't push too far for details, which I needed because my parents sure as hell are. You shot me down when I tried to protest against what was best for me. You're awesome."

Poppy rolled her eyes. "Hell yeah. I dropped everything. Didn't you know the SpongeBob movie's my favourite?"

"Poppy."

"Lizzie." Poppy replied in a tone identical to hers. "You're my best friend." She stated simply, which was about as mushy she was getting. "Anyway, allow me to go and get pudding cups from the cafeteria. The chocolate ones aren't half bad."

"Have you ever tried them?" Lizzie asked, because on numerous occasions she had heard Poppy complain about how disgusting they looked.

"Well, according to Arizona's patients. They love them." Poppy laughed, leaving the room before Lizzie had a chance to object.

On the way out, Poppy ran into Arizona who was walking around with her face in a chart, not paying attention to where she was going. They both stumbled backwards and looked around them to see who they had collided with. When they saw each other the both burst out laughing.

"Now, why am I getting a feeling of de ja vu?" Poppy asked stupidly, putting her hand on her chin and pretending to think.

Arizona played along. "Wouldn't it be because that time you ran into me on the streets and I took you in and now we're here?"

"Could be." Poppy shrugged. "I'm getting Lizzie pudding cups."

"Do not, and I repeat, do not go near the strawberry ones." Arizona warned in a deadly serious tone. "I still regret that to this day."

"I don't even wanna know…" Poppy muttered under her breath as she walked in the direction of the cafeteria and Arizona to another patient's room. Since she was already in and started work at seven the next morning, Arizona just didn't see the point of waiting so had begun her shift early. Poppy always questioned how she could get up early and work long shifts like that, but Arizona had assured her that she had always been a morning person growing up as an army brat. And she also promised her that even if she weren't a morning person, she probably would have gotten used to it as an intern and resident.

"Okay, they're not half bad." Lizzie admitted twenty minutes later when they had both finished.

"I told you I'm always right." Poppy sung.

"Pfft, you didn't even try them until tonight either."

"Good point."

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**So that's what happens! Please leave reviews! Do you think moving the rating to T was a good decision? Like, I know I never went into massive detail, but it was more the concept than the detail I was focusing on. Tell me what you thought; constructive criticism is more than welcome!**

**Happy Existing!**


	24. Chapter 24

You can call it Home

Poppy's POV

So, apparently when your best friend gets hospitalised for three days and doesn't come to school, rumours spread. A lot. I'd at least expected it to be a few days before people heard about it, but nooo, they all knew from day one. Except they didn't. None of them had any idea what had actually happened, and the questions a received about it were ridiculous. Was pregnant? Was she jumped? Did she get hit by a car? Did she _fall_ from a _window_? Yup, they had no idea.

"Bad day?" Arizona asked when I walked in after school that day and dumped my bag on the table before collapsing unceremoniously onto the couch. I looked over at her to see Meredith standing there too, with an only-just-walking Bailey attached to her leg. I smiled at her.

"Hey." I greeted her.

"Zola and Sofia are upstairs, apparently playing with Sofia's Frozen keyboard." She informed me, and as if on cue there came a few very loud and off key notes from down the hall.

Arizona flinched and shook her head. "I was ready to strangle my mom when she bought her that thing." She laughed, walking over and sitting beside me on the couch. "So, tough day?"

I shook my head and shrugged. "Not a tough day, just a long day. I'm still getting so many questions about Lizzie. But I'm not saying anything to anyone. They just don't seem to get the hint."

"People are like that. Once they hear something they stick to it, and of course everyone hears something different so everything's confusing." Arizona shrugged. "When I broke up with my girlfriend in Maryland and moved here people thought I'd slept with a man and gotten pregnant." She laughed. "Rumours get crazy."

"Yeah. It's just annoying." I sighed. "Anyway, what've you been doing today? I thought you were at work?"

"I didn't have much to do; it was basically just paperwork and stuff." She told me and I nodded.

"And I had the day off. Sofia and Zola get along so well, it's great. Keeps them busy for a while." Meredith laughed.

For the next hour or so we just sat and talked, before I decided that I would go and see Lizzie, agreeing to meet Clara there. Lizzie had been going stir crazy because Arizona had told her that she had to stay at home for two weeks because her ribs would take time to heal, and were bound to be giving her pain.

"Hey, cutie." I greeted Clara outside Lizzie's front door, giving her a quick kiss. After it lasted longer than originally planned, I heard Lizzie call pout from her living room.

"I can see you guys! Stop sucking face and get in here and keep me from going insane!" She called, making us both laugh. I took Clara's hand in mine and pushed open the front door, ready for an hour or two full of catch up and gossiping.

"So Zach's definitely not gonna be anywhere near you anytime soon?" I double triple checked for the fifth time over the last week.

"No way at all. He has a restraining order put on him, he can't come near me."

"And we'll kick his ass in to next decade if he tries." Clara added, backing up all of my earlier threats.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you guys sooner when you said there was something up with him." She said for what must have been the millionth time that week. "I really didn't know."

"Of course you didn't." Clara agreed. "Stop beating yourself up about it."

"So how're you dealing with all of this?" I asked Lizzie, who hadn't said much about the actual event itself yet.

She shrugged and raised her eyebrows. "I'm being completely honest when I say I'm fine. I expected myself to be a lot more affected by it, and I am physically because I'm in bed right now when I could be going out and seeing actual people apart from you guys." She paused. "No offense."

"Offense taken." I sighed dramatically in fake hurt, putting a hand across my heart.

"Oh, shut up." Lizzie rolled her eyes sarcastically. "But mentally I'm fine. I kind of just see it as a bad thing that happened and there's nothing I can do about it."

"Yeah, I get that." Clara sighed, before smiling. "Anyway, the senior dance is coming up, what're you guys wearing?"

Lizzie and I both rolled our eyes in unison. Clara loved events like these. There was always a themed dance at the end of each school year, and this year was 1950's. "Clara, it's in June. It's only just March."

"I don't care, we need to prepare! Now, any ideas?" She said seriously, taking out her phone and opening up the notes app. Lizzie and I shared another eye roll before deciding to go with it, because Clara was extremely stubborn.

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"You can either get up, or stay in bed and miss out on all these awesome presents and pancakes we have for you!" I heard Callie's muffled voice exclaim from where my head was buried in the pillow. I thought I could at least count on Callie to not be up so early, but nope. Arizona had apparently convinced her to get up, from what I could see from an angry glance at my alarm clock, was seven in the morning. On a Sunday. In the Easter holidays.

"I'm up, I'm up…" I half grumbled, smiling when I saw all of them standing there with a tray of pancakes and a bag of what I assumed were presents.

"Happy Birthday!" Arizona exclaimed, rushing over to hug me. I had learned over the last year and a half that Arizona loved celebrating other people's birthdays, but absolutely refused to consider her own. I had no idea why.

"Good morning to you too!" I exclaimed, taking the glass of orange juice from the tray and chugging it down. After that I did a round of hugs, Sofia telling me that she'd been up for ages while waiting for me to wake up.

"I'll try to wake up earlier next year, promise." I promised her, taking the package she held out to me and beginning to unwrap it. I smiled when I finished, seeing two things. One was a selfie just like last year's, in the very same spot in the park. I could see a tradition in the making. The second thing was a white t-shirt which said 'I have the most awesome sister' on the front. I laughed at that. I really did.

"Awww thanks Sofia!" I exclaimed, giving her a big hug.

The rest of the presents were mainly from Callie and Arizona, ranging from framed photos to a new set of Harry Potter books. Since I'd read my old ones so many times they'd become very worn, the pages were yellowing and some of them were falling out.

"Clara and Lizzie will probably be here soon." I told Callie as I ate my pancakes with help from Sofia. We were all just sitting around my room and talking about anything and everything while I ate.

"There's a surprise." Callie laughed and I could see her point. There was rarely a time when I was around but they weren't, we were kinda all joined at the hip. I loved it though, because Lizzie was my best friend and I loved her so much, not like _loved_ loved her, just as a sister. It was Clara who I _loved_ loved, as Lizzie had put it the other week.

"Yeah, everyone's coming around 2." Arizona said from across the room where she was examining my biology homework. I loved when it was someone's birthday because everyone would always get together and it was great fun to see them all. Especially last year, when Alex ended up with a piece of cake in his ear. Long story.

The rest of the day went annoyingly fast. The house was packed with people, and chatter filled the room. Meredith and Derek were there with their new baby, Ellis, who was utterly adorable, and Owen gave me a card which contained a long description of why I should become a trauma surgeon, and to be honest, trauma was what was appealing to me the most. It just intrigued me how they never knew what was coming, how fast they had to think and what a rush they must get. It was pretty awesome.

"I'd probably panic though." I joked to him as we sat at the kitchen table, watching a bunch of people playing soccer. It appeared to be Callie, Sofia, Jackson, Jo, Clara and Zola on one team, and Arizona, Alex, Richard, Tuck, Lizzie and baby Bailey on the other. Bailey could only just walk so he wasn't really playing, but he was having a good time as heard from his ecstatic laughter. Callie's team appeared to be winning.

"You think April didn't panic at first?" Owen said, nudging a pretending to be hurt April in the shoulder. "Now she's a brilliant trauma surgeon."

April scoffed. "I did not panic, I was just shocked." She tried to convince us but her tone didn't even sound halfway convincing.

"You panicked.2 Owen insisted and she slumped her shoulders.

"I know." She laughed. "But there was, like, half a tree sticking out of the guy!"

In the end, it turned out that Callie's team won by a long shot. Her and Arizona were actually halfway bickering about it when they came in, Arizona trying to argue that it wasn't that bad a loss. It was 7-0.

"Children, children, be quiet or you're going on the naughty step." I said sarcastically, just for Arizona to stick her tongue out at me, proving my point.

"Did you have a good day?" Arizona asked me as we washed dishes that night. That was a thing we did every day. I would wash, she would dry and we'd talk quietly about anything.

"It was great. Thank you so much."

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It was June now, and the weather was getting ridiculously warm. What made it worse, was the heat from the curling iron that was being pulled through my hair countless of times and the hairspray that was enough to make me choke.

"When is it gonna be done?" I whined to Clara who was doing my hair, hers up in rollers waiting be taken out.

"Now." She smiled, letting the curls hang loose. "Arizona, you're up."

Tonight was the night of the dance, and it appeared that the only one who wasn't obsessed over getting ready was me. We had agreed to get ready at our place, since Arizona had agreed to help with hair styling. There was a whole system worked out:

First, you would take a shower, and then go to Clara who would dry your hair and straighten/curl it. Then to Arizona, who was a genius with hair styling and she would style your hair. Next, to Callie who would do your makeup and Lizzie was helping when she wasn't getting ready. I was just kind of doing what I was told.

Arizona nodded importantly and started on my hair, and it wasn't long before the loud noise of the hairdryer started up again signalling that Lizzie had gotten out of the shower.

"Feels like a freaking beauty salon in here…" I muttered as Callie worked on my makeup twenty minutes later. Arizona had done my hair in a completely photo shopped ponytail, with a slight quiff at the front and a white bow. Callie had told me that she was going for natural makeup, because I had told her nothing dramatic because I didn't suit it.

"All worth it though." Clara chirped as she began on her own hair, Lizzie moving over to Arizona. Sofia and Zola were in the living room watching Frozen, and I could tell that they didn't dare come up here in fear of overheating. It was absolutely boiling in here.

"Yeah, we'll get there, dance a little, not be able to hear each other over the music, come home and sleep." I replied sarcastically, blowing a stray hair away from my face. To be honest, I was actually quite looking forward to it; it was just the getting ready part I hated.

An hour and a half later we had all made it through, and if were to be honest, we looked good, I I do say so myself. Clara looked absolutely stunning in a sky blue knee length dress with light pink roses (at least that's what I thought they were) on it, and blue heels. Her hair was in curls with a bit pulled back and her makeup was done flawlessly.

Lizzie was also wearing a knee length dress, this one dark blue with white polka dots, paired with vibrant red heels. Her hair was curled, and since it was short it fell only to about just after her ears, but it looked uh-ma-zing.

I was wearing a mint green one with capped sleeves and buttons on the chest, and the netting from underneath showed just a little at the bottom. I loved it. I went with a simple pair of white heels, but not too high because my feet were annoyingly small and it hurt to wear high heels for more than ten minutes.

"You all look beautiful." Callie complimented as we got ready to leave. Clara was my date and Lizzie was apparently was taking a guy named James, although she stated that she had no interest in him.

Lizzie had completely recovered from the, uh, incident. As soon as Arizona had cleared her to go back to school she hadn't hesitated in joining right back in with all the sports she done and no one could get her to stop. To be honest, if I'd been stuck in the house for two weeks then I'd be going insane too.

"My baby girl…" Arizona started to tear up, making me laugh. Although she'd only met me two years ago and had never actually seen me as a baby, or a child for that matter, she still got emotional because she said it felt like she had known me all my life. And Callie always said that she knew exactly how I'd be as a baby.

"Chill, guys. It'll be worse at prom." I rolled my eyes, putting my phone, lip gloss, money and keys into my purse. When it had come to my outfit, I'd let Clara and Arizona take full reign, not trusting myself to make sure that everything matched. I love how Clara and Arizona seemed to be forming a team, while Lizzie and Callie were on the other.

"Be safe! Call if you need us! Don't be back at crazy hours in the morning!" Callie called from the car as she dropped us of at the school. I could already hear swing music coming from the gym hall and the front entrance was littered with people greeting each other or waiting for their friends.

"Yes, Madre." I agreed, before taking Clara's hand and followed Lizzie and James into the hall, ready to dance and have fun.

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Hey guys, hope you liked this! I figured we needed a light and fluffy chapter right now. And I'm sorry it's late, but hopefully it's good!

**And also, again, for all my fellow Pinterest people, my name's Jenny Dickson on there and I've of course posted the outfits there! You should check them out! **

Happy existing!


	25. Chapter 25

**You can call it Home**

**Hello, people of earth! Congratulations, you made it to the last chapter! Also, happy Grey's time for anyone in America. It doesn't air in the UK until January. Sob.**

**You'll also be happy to know that this chapter was planned during a cover History lesson when I was supposed to be answering questions about Germany. You should feel privileged, I love (hate) history!**

**Anyway, happy reading!**

Arizona's POV- year and a bit later

So the time had come. My little girl was off to college. Well, I hadn't known her for her whole life but it felt like it, and plus she was a foetus then compared to now.

I was so incredibly proud of her. She got into Stanford. Freaking Stanford, California! Isn't that incredible? She worked her ass off to get into there since it was the college of her dreams and now she'd done it. I'm not gonna lie, having her move to California was incredibly scary, but this was the next step in her life. She was an adult now. Plus, it wasn't cheap, but we could afford it. We had pretty well paying jobs and there was also the option of student loans and what not. And also, Carlos had also made it very clear that we could always turn to him, but Callie and I had made it perfectly clear that that was only a last resort.

What made it better as that Lizzie and Clara were both going to the University of California, Lizzie to study business and Clara psychology. It brought me comfort to know that she wouldn't be completely alone there, and I liked Lizzie and Clara so I was fine with them getting an apartment between them.

"You're getting emotional, momma." Poppy laughed at our last dinner together before she left tomorrow. We'd already been down there a few weeks ago to move stuff in, and the plan was to drop her off at the airport with Lizzie and Clara tomorrow morning. Of course everyone was emotional.

"Yeah, well, so is Madre!" I laughed, pointing an accusing finger at Callie who up until this point was perfectly fine.

Callie smiled and pointed at Sofia who was paying no attention to the conversation and was off in her own little world. "Well so is Sofia!"!

"What about me?" She asked, looking up from her plate curiously. "What?" She demanded when we all laughed.

"Nothing, sweetheart." I laughed, and then turned to Poppy. "So on scales of one to ten, how excited are you?"

She thought for a minute. "About a nine. I'm really looking forward to it, but I'm also super nervous and I'm not keen on moving state either."

"I get what you mean." I nodded. "I was excited to move here to work at Seattle Grace, but I wasn't thrilled at moving across the country. As much as I needed away from it all."

"I think once I settle down and get used to it all then I'll be fine." Poppy agreed.

"And as much as we want you to chase your dreams, try to avoid moving across the country, because I couldn't handle that." Callie added.

"Either could I to be honest." Poppy laughed, just as Sofia re-joined the conversation and frowned.

"You're moving away?" She asked sadly, her lower lip trembling.

"Only for a while, then I'm coming back."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

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"Momma, Poppy's being mean!"

"Madre, Sofia took my makeup bag!"

Were they serious?

The day was here, and Poppy, Clara and Lizzie were due to be at the airport in four hours. Apparently, Poppy had been lying to us about being completely packed for weeks when in truth she was now dashing around the house trying to track everything down. Most of her stuff was in their apartment in California, but she still had a suitcase and a rucksack with bare essentials in it. Bare essentials that were yet to be packed, apparently.

"What's going on?" I said as I approached Poppy's room, which looked like a bomb had hit it. Sofia was sitting in the corner next to the chest of drawers clutching what seemed to be Poppy's blue makeup bag, while Poppy towered over her trying to get it back.

"Poppy's being mean!"

"Sofia has my makeup bag!"

I rolled my eyes. One day, they were gonna grow up and realise how stupid they were being. I still looked back on arguments with Timothy and laughed at how ridiculous the topic of conflict was. However, that wouldn't help the current situation.

"Sofia, why do you have Poppy's makeup bag?" I sighed, walking further into the room and starting to fold up some of the clothes that were scattered across the bed.

"I just want to look at it!"

"But you have your own."

"Yeah, but…"

"Give it back to Poppy please." I told her, and she looked like she was going to protest for a moment but decided not to. I left the room and began my hunt for Callie, who had disappeared into the depths of the chaos about half an hour ago and I hadn't seen her since.

I found her in the living room, looking over all the photos on the mantelpiece, apparently having a moment. She had her back to me so I came up from behind and wrapped my arms around her waist, taking a closer look at the photo she had in her hand. It was one of all four of us, just before Poppy's prom. Poppy looked stunning in a dress of pale gold and all of us looked so happy.

"Aw, you're having a sappy moment." I laughed and kissed her on the cheek. Everyone always thought that I would be the sappy one, but that was definitely Callie.

"I can't believe she's away to college. And to freaking Stanford too." She said, setting the photo back down on the mantelpiece exactly as it had been before, in between Sofia's school photo and our wedding picture.

"She was a baby when we first met her." I agreed.

"I sometimes forget that we've only known her for three years, it feels like she's always been here."

"I get what you mean." I nodded. "But I think we're gonna have to save the sappy moments for later because we're already running late."

It wasn't overly long before we successfully got everything packed and were on our way to the airport, once everyone chipped in and ran around the house packing like crazy. We met Lizzie and Clara there, both of whom were with their parents.

"And you have everyone's number, you can call every single day if you want, and all you have to do is say the word and we'll fly over there or you can come here, and you have to call at least once a week…" I rambled as we walked through the airport doors.

Seattle Tacoma airport, or what we called Sea-Tac airport, was of course most busy on the day that we were there. We had a hard time dodging people who were rushing to catch flights and I nearly had to restrain Callie from snapping at a woman who barged past me while walking in the opposite direction without apologising.

"I'll call once a week. I'll send photos. I'll visit during the holidays, I'll call you if there's anything I need, or if I need help with assignments, and I'll remember that although parties seem like a good idea in the first place, I'll regret them the next morning." Poppy recited everything Callie and I had told her over the last few months, ever since she got into Stanford.

"And Clara, remind her that she has to call us when she gets there because there's over a 100% chance that she'll forget." I told Clara who smiled and nodded.

"You got it, Arizona." She said, and I leaned in to hug her. I really liked Clara. I know I'd said that I'd liked Grace, but Clara was different. She didn't always agree with everything we said and she would stand up to us, but not in an insolent way. It just showed she was comfortable with us. Callie and I approved of her right from the start because she made Poppy happy, and that's all we were looking for.

I then moved on to hug Lizzie. Lizzie had helped Poppy through some hard times over the past years and had been an unswervingly loyal best friend to her, and I thanked her for that. As much as Callie and I could comfort Poppy, we weren't teenagers and we weren't Lizzie. Lizzie had a way of making Poppy listen when she would ignore us and quite often had to talk her out of stupid things.

"I don't want Poppy to go!" Sofia cried as she hugged Poppy by the boarding gates. Sofia had been pretty okay with the fact that Poppy was going to college, all until she'd fully grasped the idea that Poppy was going to have to move to California to do so, which had been about five seconds ago.

"Hey, don't cry!" Poppy comforted her, although her own voice was slightly shaky. "I'm still going to see you, every single holiday. I promise. I'll be back for Christmas and we can make the house look like Christmas throw up!"

"But Christmas is _ages _away!" Sofia complained.

"Yeah, but because I'll be away for so long it means you'll be more happy to see me and we'll have so much fun! And I'll even write a letter to Santa to make sure he gets you a really good present." Poppy promised. I took Callie's hand in mine and squeezed it as we watched the whole scene play out.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Sofia contemplated for a moment before nodding. "Okay then. But you have to come back as soon as you can." She said seriously, giving Poppy the biggest hug she possibly could.

"As soon as I can." Poppy nodded, before standing up straight and facing us, wiping her eyes which were watering like crazy. "I don't know why I'm so emotional, it's not like we're saying goodbye or anything. Just a 'see you!'."

I shook my head and pulled her into a bone crushing hug, feeling my own eyes starting to fill up with tears. "I'll miss you so much."

"I'm going to become a mess if we don't stop all of this sappy stuff." She laughed as I let her go and she hugged Callie tightly, before stepping back and taking a long look at all of us.

"I know you keep saying that I never need to thank you, because it's not a thing to feel thankful for, adoption. But I'm going to say it anyway, and it's gonna be cheesy because I've been rehearsing it in my head for days now, so be prepared.

"Thank you so much. If I hadn't run into you Momma on the streets then I don't even want to think about where I would be. In one of those horrible camps that try to make you straight again? Or dating a guy? Ewe." She shuddered. "And you just took me, this complete stranger with loads of baggage, into your apartment and let it become my home then adopt me. And now I can't even remember what life was like when you guys weren't my parents. "Well I can, but I hate to think about it. David and Sarah are just people who exist to me now, because you guys are my family, and I wouldn't have it any other way." She finished and took a deep breath.

"Wow, you were right." I mumbled. "That was cheesy." I laughed, before Callie and I both enveloped her in a massive hug, and I could feel Sofia hugging our legs too. "But I wouldn't have it any other way either."

"We love you Poppy." Callie agreed, which set everyone off and it took us a few moments to be able to see clearly and form coherent words.

Just as we recovered from it all, the final call for Poppy's flight was announced and now she really did have to leave. She gave us all last really big hugs before setting off.

"And don't you dare love California too much!" I called after her.

She turned round and gave us a big smile. "Don't worry!" She called back. "I'll always call this place home."

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Okay, did you guys like it? Was it too cheesy, to repetitive, or was it good? Please leave a review!

Well, I guess that's it! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing and following and favouriting, I appreciate all of it so much! And if you're interested, my other story Being Arizona has still got ages to go so you should check it out!

Happy Existing!


	26. Chapter 26

Hey guys, just to let you know that I've submitted this fic into a contest! In my opinion, this story's average, but I got the message and I was like, why not? So please check it out and vote or whatever you have to do!

stories/27903


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